Was just wondering what trout flies would be considered advanced for a tier to do? I know woven bugs are considered advanced but what others do you think fall into that category?
harry mason
[url=http://www.troutflies.com:15b9d]http://www.troutflies.com[/url:15b9d]
In a word … realistics ! Man , those are tough .
Life is like a fly swap…You never know what your going to get.
Harry,
Moving target 
When one starts to tie, every new fly attempted is ‘advanced’. Then they start getting “less advanced”.
As one’s own years advance, these same patterns might gradually become more and more “advanced” to tie well…
Cheers,
Hans W
running&ducking
=== You have a friend in Low Places ===
http://www.danica.com/flytier
bones,
That’s a good question. Here’s a lousy answer.
In general, I’d say the longer the recipe, the more difficult the fly. I’d also say it would depend on the relationship of parts to size. For example, a ‘simple’ Light Hendrickson isn’t so simple on a size 28.
Allan
Flies in your “comfort” zone aren’t advanced, no matter how complicated or difficult to tie they are. What is advanced is a fly that challenges you as a tier. It’s advanced if it advances your tying skill or ability.
Right on OkieBass133-You said a lot when you said:
“It’s advanced if it advances your tying skill or ability.”
That does it for me!
Rich
While I agree to a point with OkieBass133, it’s been my experience that there is a hierarchical progression to learning to master difficult patterns. Mastering a GRHE does not give you the tools to build a no hackle. So I guess a better question would be what technique(s) would you consider advanced and what would your criteria be for the selection?
harry mason
[url=http://www.troutflies.com:b752e]http://www.troutflies.com[/url:b752e]
Oh and yes Han’s has it nuts on… ask any old tier or young one with old eyes 
harry mason
[url=http://www.troutflies.com:da19a]http://www.troutflies.com[/url:da19a]
You may want to take a look at Al Cambells articals in the Fly Tying section.
He has postings on Basic Tying, Beginning Tying, Intermediate Tying and Advanced Tying.
I think you’ll find what your looking for.
Many of the newer fly tying guides rate the difficulty of flies on a scale of one to five for overall difficulty. The Orvis guide rates a couple of 100 flies on that scale. 8T
You had better learn to be a happy camper. You only get one try at this campground and it’s a real short camping season.
According to the newer folks based on Orvis ?
Nothing wrong with that.
As long as the fish agree.
Jeffie,
I’m not sure what you mean by “new folks” at Orvis. The book I’m referring to is the 375 page Orvis Fly-Tying Guide by Tom Rosenbauer published in 2001. Tom is no novice or hacker at either fly fishing or fly tying. I offered the suggestion as a rough guide to fly difficulty. Hope it was helpful to some. Just my 2% of a dollar. 8T
You had better learn to be a happy camper. You only get one try at this campground and it’s a real short camping season.
Eight Thumbs, please except my apology!
I mis-read your post. When I read the part
“couple of 100 flies”
I thought “2 of 100 flies” by mistake.
I think this is an interesting question. Years ago, everyone tied wet flies with quill wings, and that was the norm, and I imagine it was thought to be fairly easy. Now, we hardly ever do anything with Mallard quill or Goose, and when we do, it seems very difficult. People back then though could have hardly imagined tying as small as we routinely do today. I can remember when a #18 dry was considered small. Now, it’s my average sized dry fly, unless I’m fishing the Hendrickson hatch. Wet fly wings were very difficult for me when I began to go after the flies that I had never been able to tie well in the past. It’s very relative I think, and any fly is difficult to tie really well.
Eric
Jeffie,
No apology necessary. Thanks for the clarfication. 8T
I have to agree with this definition. An advanced fly is one that stretches your abilities and advances your skill.
I don’t know that I agree with Eric in that any fly is difficult to tie well. I think that flies can have varying levels of difficulty to master, but I find that some are not difficult to tie well fairly quickly. Some just take more effort to learn the techniques involved. I think that if you have the techniques mastered, you can tie any fly that uses those techniques well. Maybe some techniques are more advanced than others?
Case in point… Being new to tying flies and not knowing that tying winged wets was supposed to be difficult, I dug in and started tying them. My issues were not with the wings, but with getting the head nice and small, getting the hackle to lay in right, laying a tinsel tag in nice and smooth, and getting the right number of wraps of rib going in the right direction. In short, everything BUT the wings! The wings were just never an issue for me. Being fortunate enough to get some excellent feedback from Eric and then finding out I had Charlie Craven almost in my backyard, I wound up with some excellent help with technique that has paid off not only in my wets, but in everything else I try to tie.
The techniques used in the winged wets are basic to many flies. After working on the techniques involved with the winged wets, I found the traditional dries to come pretty easily.
Woven bodies do not look advanced to me as I used to build saddles and did a lot of leather braiding. The techniques are similar.
All of that aside, I can not get dubbing to stick to the thread with roofing tar! Aplying dubbing to the thread is an advanced technique that is totally eluding me right now.
So an advanced fly is going to be different for everyone. For some, it will be the winged wets. For others, it may be the woven bodies or realistics. For me, it is currently the dreaded dubbed body fly.
I’d like to add that another aspect of the concept of “advanced flies” isn’t so much the difficulty in doing the pattern, but more in doing the pattern well.
There’s a small minority of tying techniques that simply will not go if they’re less than perfect (spinning hair is one). Most techniques will still give some result, even if it looks bad. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you can do it well.
…
On a different line of thought, for a more objective take, I’d say an advanced fly pattern would be one that includes one or more of the following: fussy materials, tricky fingerwork, critical proportioning, critical placement of features, some mechanical feature (anything from articulated bodies to knotted fiber legs), or any fly that relies on getting a certain material to do something it wasn’t really designed to do.
Love your web site that I have visited many times, you’re a true artist. Nice to hear your comments on the subject.
Harry -
Seems to me you are looking for some objective standards to apply, which is a very difficult task in a forum where the desirable characteristics of the end product are very subjective and range of abilities is so broad.
In my experience, the number of materials used would be a key indicator of novice, intermediate, or advanced fly tying.
A fly using only thread, like a thread midge, or a couple materials, like a zonker streamer or san juan worm or a mohair leech would be considered novice level tying.
Step it up to four for five materials and you are probably into the intermediate category, especially if the materials are used in a more complicated order. For example, tying the FEB Hopper requires only four materials but the tying techniques and sequence for the various materials are certainly above novice level and clearly not up to advanced fly tying. Or a thorax style dry fly using Marino’s approach to the thorax hackle technique - not really all that difficult, but a bit much for a novice, whereas a thorax dry fly where you clip the bottom of the hackle may well fall into the novice category.
Beyond the number of materials at the intermediate level, it seems to me the type of material and it’s use starts to define advanced tying. Using a CDC wing on a Harrop’s Henry’s Fork Caddis is an intermediate level use. But getting CDC right on a very small emerger pattern that includes several other materials and is tied with very fine thread might be the thing that defines that fly as adanced. Using duck quill is one thing for wings on a wet, another matter on tying Mike Lawson’s no hackle mayflies.
These comments go beyond the question you asked, but it seems to get to the answer you have to use a procession of elimination rather than define the things that are your answer, if that makes sense ??
John
Advanced for me is a #18 Royal Wulff or a Swisher and Richards no hackle. If you can get those wings on a no hackle totally symmetric so the fly doesn’t twist on the cast, you have arrived!