What was your first vise, tools & materials ?

[bugman]

when i first started tying, the price was real cheap... didnt have money to buy a storebought vice so i made one... it was a clothespin screwed to a stick and stuck in a peice of 2 by 4...feathers was just whatever i found in the yard or the chicken coop & fur was from whatever had hair like discarded peices of carpet or just about anything... my grandma made all our clothes so i had plenty of thread to tie with... she allways left a foot or 2 on the spools when she throwedem away... later on i got a thompsonvise, the older model what has a knob at the rear to tighten the jaws... now i use a danvise and have tying tools for every tying situation emaginable, (6 tying stations all with vices, tools & tying materials), teaching a tying class and have a walk in closet full of tying materials...

[kypapaw]

My first vise was a small pair of needle nose vise grips that I would stand up in a couple holes drilled in a board.They actually worked pretty good.I would pick up feathers from the ducks and geese at a local pond and sometimes use packing foam cut to size as bodies.Thank God for sharpies.
-Steve

[Flyrodde]

I guess I started with a kings ransom compaired to you. I got a cheap vise (special made for fly fying) and new tools for about $50 total. I've upgraded my tools since then, but my ability is about the same.

[Steve Molcsan]

My first vise was a small pair of needle nose vise grips that I would stand up in a couple holes drilled in a board.They actually worked pretty good.I would pick up feathers from the ducks and geese at a local pond and sometimes use packing foam cut to size as bodies.Thank God for sharpies.
-Steve

You know to this day I carry a very small pair of vise grips and loupe with me when fishing, comes in very handy. Before my Regal that is how I would fumble around making my own flies.

Sewing scissors & small vise grips with thread right from the spool..
Grasshopper wings from blades of grass.. Dab of head cement and
volia, blade hopper, come and get it...

Steve

[jeffnles1]

I was really fortunate. A fellow FAOL'er loaned me my first vise and gave me a couple pair of scissers and misc. other tools (bodki, bobbin, etc.). Because of his generosity, I got off to a good start with high quality stuff and I do think it made a difference. I really love to tie and got off to a very quick start.

Some of the tools he gave me are ones I still use in every tying session because I appreciate his gift and because it was quality stuff.

As I gather more stuff, I will, someday, pass on his generosity to a new tyer or a new fly fisher.

Jeff

[William Fitzgerald]

My fingers,-----mothers thread varn and chicken feathers. It worked and I still can tie with my fingers. BILL

[dudley]

When I was 7 my family went on a camping trip to the Rangeley Lakes area in Maine.
On the way my father filled my head with stories of the region's rich fly fishing heritage. I had seen Ted Williams cast at the Boston Sportsman's show earlier in the year and I wanted to cast and fish like Ted.
Later at the campsite I tied up a fly on a bait hook with some of my mother's olive colored wool knitting yarn, grabbed a rod and headed down to the lake
I had little casting experience, but I did get my homemade fly out far enough to catch a fish (a smelt) My first fish on a fly. My first fish on a fly that I tied myself.

When I started tying for real, in the early 70s, I had a Herter's vice and some cheap sewing scissors.
For materials, I used sewing thread and whatever I could scrounge up along with feathers and other stuff that I found.....
Kinda like what I still use

[Grubb]

In 1996 I received a fly tying kit from Wal-Mart that had a Fly Master Supreme Vise in it, the kit at the time I think was around $30.00 and included all the stuff I needed to get started. I still remember my first fly I tied, now that was funny, I kept it for along time, I remember that I was so excited, lol That fly was a site to look at, but it was my first one and I could do it!
I didn't catch a fish on my first fly but I was so excited about it, I was off to the races with it, I liked doing it. I had fun collecting tying material from nature, road kill, found feathers, hunting etc...

[Eight Thumbs]

That is an easy question. My first real fly tying vise came in an Official Boy Scout fly tying kit and was a stamped metal piece of cr*p that would hardly hold a hook at all. The kit also came with small packages of brightly colored but totally useless feathers and hair. Still and all, at the age of 11, I was totally hooked on fly tying.

A year later, I purchases a Herter's vise and tool kit. That was in 1957 and I used it right up through the mid 1970s. I believe the total cost for the vise, scissors, bobbin, mirror, and bobbin rest was about $17. I still have a soft spot in my heart for Herter's and Waseca. 8T

[J Castwell]

A classic situation. My uncle mad me one where he worked. My grandfather gave me a HI rod for Christmas and my dad gave me a silk fly line. I was twelve.