What was the best one thing anyone told you / taught you about fly tying?

[Uncle Jesse]

This is kind of a parallel thread running in the opposite direction than the "What do you wish someone had told you" thread. I figure I can cut and paste the results of the two and publish a book on fly tying someday.

One of the best things anyone taught me was how to shape foam bodies with a rotary tool and an emery board.

[ScottP]

Proportions - get them right and everything else falls into place.

Regards,
Scott

[Steve Molcsan]

Look with eyes that see sometimes the smallest occurrence on the water surface can help catch the nicest fish.

[rainbowchaser]

"You can't wade that." Next time I'll listen

[herefishy]

You can make a wing case out of anything that you want to.

[TyroneFly]

Let the rod do most of the work. Mel Krieger gave me that advice one Saturday while I was at the casting pond in Golden Gate Park. He always gave freely of his time and knowledge to those practicing at the pond.

[JohnScott]

Get a seine or an aquarium net, and use it.

John

[hap]

My father insisted on setting a fly in front of me and having me tie that same fly at least a dozen times right there in one sitting... Then we would go over them, always comparing back to the original. Got to where I could tie most any fly by the dozen and every one looked the same every time... Backwards, that developed the eye for proportion and the hands for muscle memory.

My son has incredible focus and patience and it worked for him, too... Most other kids I guess I was trying too young...

art

[Gandolf]

Hi All,

The single best piece of advise that I learned was that you learn to tie flies by PRACTICING the basic techniques and practices such as learning to dub, learning how to tie in wings of various types, learning the pinch, learning to use a soft loop, how to hackle a soft hackle fly, learn thread management, proportions, etc.

Once you learn those things, and master them, then you can tie just about any fly that you want to fish with.

I remember the statement that professional basketball players practiced the same shot over and over until it becomes second nature to do that shot. Professional golfers practice driving hundreds and thousands of buckets of golf balls, etc. Fly tying is no different. If you want to become a good tier, practice the same basic technique over and over by tying the same pattern over and over until you master it, and nymphs are the best place to start.

I started out tying pheasant tails, and tied lots of them, beginning with large size, and when I could tie that well, went to the next smaller size, etc., and then I went to gold ribbed hare's ears, etc. I ended up learning the basic tying techniques, and ended up with a very useful set of flies. When you have a couple of the basic nymphs down, then try dries.

At any rate, that advise was by far the best tying advise I got as a beginning tier. If you tie every fly that looks fun and jump from fly to fly, it becomes much more difficult to learn tying.

Yes, tying the same pattern over and over was not as much fun as playing at tying, and could maybe even described as effort, and it sure looked like a lot of fun to try bunches of different flies, rather than to practice on one pattern at a time, but the payoff was worth the effort.

Tying is a lot more fun when tying the fly becomes a mechanical thing instead of it being a challenge, which may or may not be sucessful on a give fly, to do some of the tying steps.

Regards,

Gandolf

[John Rhoades]

Sometimes the worst looking tied flies catch the most fish.

Tie flies that catch fish, not fishermen.