Thanks, Allan, for starting this topic.

I shouldn't be here - too busy getting ready for the Symposium this weekend - but I couldn't resist.

Having tied commercially for 12 or so years, sometimes more than eight hours per day, I want to make a couple points. First, I believe that most "professional" factory fly tiers would kick our collective asses - bigtime - in this contest. I heard of one woman tier at a factory in Thailand who can tie 54 DOZEN Joe's Hoppers in two days! Now, her materials are pre-selected, prepared, and materials ready to go, delivered to her work station, but is that not what Jim Krul's boys did last Sunday in Danbury?
Regardless of how easy or difficult the pattern, experience, the more the better, IMHO, counts the most in this contest. Doing this for a living, day after day, makes one an extremely fast fly tier.

I once tied fifteen dozen drys in one day and thought it quite an accomplishment. I know a young fellow who, some years ago, was tying commercially for Blue Ribbon Flies. He procrastinated and screwed around and then had to force his face against the grindstone to get the order done on time. He slept very little, but in ten days tied 180 DOZEN dry flies. This particular person gave up commercial tying after that "burning-the-candle-at-both-ends" marathon.

Not prior to my commercial experience, but within six to eight months after I began tying commercially, I could (and still can!) tie a Comparadun in three minutes. But during an hour straight run, lose some momentum and can only tie about 16 to 18 Comparaduns per hour. I can tie a dozen Catskill drys in 35 minutes. I can tie the Lawson simplified version of a Marinaro Thorax Dun in less than three minutes.
Of course, these times are with materials prepared in advance. Hackles selected, but not trimmed.
My fastest pace was five dozen flies per hour, they were size #24 Midge Larva. I did thirty dozen of those in one day of just under six hours tying.

All that said, I think I could have approached five dozen thread body Soft-hackles in this contest.

So I agree with the guy who said 60, but will make my guess a little lower to be different.

I say 54 flies tied by the winner.

PS - every fly I tie is technically correct. If a fly I tie doesn't pass my personal strict quality control, it won't go into the "sell" bin. I usually stop & repeat a particular step if necessary to have each fly that leaves my vise be a well tied fly. I feel there should be quality control on this contest, flies not meeting the criteria of correct proportions should be canned.

"If you can't tie a good fly, speed is insignificant." That's a quote from me. I just made it up.

DB

Well, back to the vise...