Cost of flies...

All about flies Fly Tying
1

I’ve not ‘bought’ a fly for many, many years. I made a commitment to myself long ago that I would only fish with flies that I tied. I’m not too anal about it, I have used flies tied by friends occasionally, but I’ve managed to stay away from ‘purchasing flies’ at fly shops or from catalogs for decades…

Nothing wrong with buying flies, mind you, and I know I’m not really ‘saving money’…With all I’ve spent on materials and tools, I could have easily bought thousands of flies…

I just like to use my own flies.

I do get a lot of the catalogs that sell flies, though. I’m always browsing, looking for things to duplicate or modify to suit a need or just because I want to play with a new style or technique. Just hadn’t really paid attention to the PRICES listed…didn’t care, didn’t look.

Somehow I guess I missed the explosion in fly prices…what I consider ‘simple standard pattern trout flies’ seem to have gone up into the over a dollar range…and bass flies? Some of the topwaters I’ve seen are selling for $4 to $6 EACH! Yikes!!

I know I’m getting old…but if I had to ‘buy’ the flies that I’d want for an afternoon on the lake it would cost me a couple of hundred bucks at retail…and I’d be tossing them to stumps, logs, flooded trees, grass, angry bass, and rocks…places you don’t always get them back from…

I’m not so sure that a fledgeling fly fisherman, especially one who’s targeting bass or panfish, couldn’t actually ‘save money’ now by tying their own…even starting out with nothing…

Well, maybe not really, but WOW, flies have gotten expensive.

Buddy

2

Hey Buddy, you’re not the only one, I made the same commintment when I started tying flies. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, I agree, but it’s just a personal choice. I’m not sure if it’s cheaper to tie your own but it sure is more fun.
I own a handfull of flies bought at a fly store many many years ago.

3

It may not be cheaper to tie all of your own, but is definately cheaper to tie some of them. A lot of the saltwater and bass bugs have got to be cheaper to tie your own.

it gets somewhat cheaper when you get your own materials, or substitute materials from other realms.

4

Thanks for the post Buddy.

I remember the first fly I tied after I bought a vise, bobbin, thread material, and hooks et al. I showed it to my wife and said this is a $150.00 dollar fly if I snag it I?m diving for it. Been tying for about 5 years now I am sure I have gotten it down to $40.00 dollar flies by now but don’t tell my wife that.

I would do it again in a heart beat though.

Sean.

5

Brings up a question - do the “latest and greatest” flies hot off the Umpqua or MFC vises catch more fish? Do fish get tired of the “old reliables”? Or do you just keep catching the same fish with the same flies?

6

Do mule deer drop quicker when hit with a slug from the latest “7mm/458 YBM” ( You Blast’em Magnum) or will the old reliable 30-06 still work…?

7

The fish may get tired of seeing the old standbys, but I’m not leaving home without my pheasant tail nymphs and cracklebacks!

Dave

8

Don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve caught more trout on Adams dries, Pheasant Tail Nymphs and Elk Hair Caddis than any other flies. All of them are old designs and still catch fish.

For Warm Water bass, bluegill, crappie, poppers, white and black woolie buggers and various streamers. I do catch a lot on spun deer hair bugs but to me, those are essentially poppers.

I also catch a lot on foam bodied “gugle pops”.

I reckon new flies catch fish but so do the old flies.

I know I like to experiment with different materials and make things up. Usually my “creations” (“Franken-flies”) catch fish and sometimes they don’t. I don’t think the fish are as picky as the fly fishermen. It looks like something they could eat, they’re going to eat it.

Jeff

9

I don’t think fishies get tired of trying to eat the things ( flies ) that will keep them alive, whether they fall in an “old reliables” category or are something new for this season. Evolution of the naturals fish prey on is a lot slower than the imaginations of people coming up with new flies to keep a market for their products alive, but if the new offerings look edible and are presented well, the fish will respond. I pretty much keep catching fish with the same flies, except for something new I come up with now and then, and if it works well it becomes one of the “same flies”.

Haven’t noticed a big price jump in trout flies, but may be I am missing something ??

However, whether you save money tying your own comes down to a matter of scale, and whether you only tie flies to go fishing. If you ties flies only for fishing and you fish a LOT, you will recover the cost of tools and materials rather quickly and get way ahead not much further down the road. Last time I tallied up my savings from tying my own vs buying, last spring some time, it was something over $2,000. ( Throw in the savings from furling my own leaders, and the number would be quite a bit higher. )

If you tie flies as a craft, for the fun of it, or to give away, or as art, or some other form of hobby or creative exercise and don’t fish those flies, and you don’t fish much, it may well be impossible to ever break even. But then you aren’t really tying fishing flies - so your money is well spent, hopefully, on the enjoyable hours you spend pursuing some other goals.

John

10

Mule deer don’t have a choice …

11

You missed the point! WHICH WAS…the latest and greatest…isnt always the greatest!!!

12

First time I caught a fish on a dry fly it was on a Royal Coachman I had tied just because it was pretty. Since that wasn’t all that long ago, the Royal Coachman is still a “go to” fly for me. The brookies love the Leadwing Coachman, too. Love them old flies.

13

It is possible to save money tying your own flies for fishing. You can get hooks for about 10c each. I picked up a 100 pack of Mustad 3366s for just under 5.00 Cnd, so less than 5c/hook and a 100 pack of 9575 (streamer hooks) for about 14.00, or 14c/hook. Material used to tie the fly can be had for pennies, for example.

You don’t need to spend thousands on tying materials, a few things are required, like a hare’s mask, peacock herl, copper wire, some brown hackles, some grizzle hackles, some mallard flank feathers, both white and dyed woodduck, a pair of mallard wings, a few colours of wool yarn (red, yellow, orange, olive, brown, and black; probably $1 each if you get embroidary yarn), and a set of hen pheasant wings. All of that, if you shop around, should be well under $50.00 and you could use all that to tie up all 200 flies. So that’s $70/200 flies, or 35 cents per fly, and I’m suggesting we’ve used up all that material on our 200 flies. Since we’re unlikely to use up all of our material, the cost could be less.

Now, let’s say to buy those flies, we’re talking $1.00/fly. We save 0.65c/fly (at the extreme). To make up for our tool investment (say $100 for a simple vice, scissors, and 2 bobbin holders), we only have to complete our first tie of 200 flies (which saved us $130.00, so we’re $30 to the good, which is more than the cost of our next 200 hooks!).

That, of course, is the theory.

In reality, we end up buying more material than we need, we don’t run out of materials and then replace it, we see a hackle that’s a slightly different shade of brown, and we get that because we can. We would have to tie 1000s upon 1000s of flies to get ahead, and we know, if we were buying flies, we would never buy so many. We’re not saving because the comparison to what we would do otherwise is “otherwise, I would just own 20 flies, and fish those; I would spend $20.00, and make due. If I occasionally lost some, I would occassionally spend $1 to replace it.”

You don’t save money.

You do, however, get to enjoy yourself. I’m pretty sure I’m ahead.

  • Jeff
14

I think it also depends on your source of buying flies. I generally get my flies for 75 cents each. (Well last spring they were 50 cents…)

I also tend to buy “groups” of flies to restock my pile and not including the fly box included, it costs me roughly 40 cents a fly that way.

Paul

15

Here is part of JeffHamm’s post :

"In reality, we end up buying more material than we need, we don’t run out of materials and then replace it, we see a hackle that’s a slightly different shade of brown, and we get that because we can. We would have to tie 1000s upon 1000s of flies to get ahead, and we know, if we were buying flies, we would never buy so many. We’re not saving because the comparison to what we would do otherwise is “otherwise, I would just own 20 flies, and fish those; I would spend $20.00, and make due. If I occasionally lost some, I would occassionally spend $1 to replace it.”

You don’t save money.

You do, however, get to enjoy yourself. I’m pretty sure I’m ahead."

All I can add to that is Amen brother!

Tim

16

If you don’t count my time, my homemade flies are cheaper than store-bought. Of course, it took tens of thousands of flies to reach that point. Still not counting my time…

The only reason I tie is that it is a looooong way to a fly shop and there aren’t any that sell the flies on which I catch 98% of my fish. Minor details.

Not counting my time… :stuck_out_tongue:

17

I echo what Jeff has said, especially about the enjoyment part of tying. This afternoon I had about a two hour window to relax. My wife suggested going to a small pond across the road from the house and fishing for a couple of hours. I thought for a moment and said “I think I’d rather tie some flies for a couple of hours”. I tied up some midges that I’ve been thinking about for the past couple of days. They look good and I can’t wait to fish them. Sometimes I’d rather tie than fish. Whether or not I’ve saved money is a good question. I want to say that I have, but after looking around my tying room I’m not so sure. For me, tying is worth it.

18

I am sure my ol’ 303 still does the job, 180,160, and 150 class white tails racks tell me so.

I too have not bought a fly in 20yrs… and I keep my wife and kids in flyes…

19

When we travel, I will buy some flies in a local shop. I look for patterns that might be unique to that area. I buy two of each pattern, one to fish while I’m there, and one to keep as a pattern model so I can tie up some more before we return to that area.
I consider fly tying my “therapy”. After a bad day at work, I’ll go down to the tying bench for an hour or so. My wife knows not to bother me for a while. When I feel better, I go back upstairs and we can enjoy a nice peaceful supper together. I not sure if it’s any cheaper than a real therapist, but then I can’t throw a real therapist in the water and catch fish.:lol:
CJ

20

I fish about 99.99% my own, but I have bought flies from some shops to use as models for tying what’s “hot” on the water at that moment if what I’m using isn’t quite doing it. Also, with places like Blue Ribbon, Henry’s Fork Anglers, Slide Inn, Kingfisher, I’m pretty sure I’m getting flies tied by folks in the shop, not in a factory across the pond, which is cool. Prices for some flies in the catalogues amaze me - $6.00 for a Merkin??, which is nothing but rug yarn, hackle tips, rubber legs and lead eyes and takes about 5 minutes to tie.

Regards,
Scott