My wife did some research, and as a result, knows more about flytying then I do. She bought me a griffen montana mongoose vise, bodkins, a bobbin, hackle plyers, fly glue, thread and a whip finish tool that I know is going to whip me good and a pair of scissors so expensive, I will have to open a barber shop to pay for them. Today I ordered an assortment of materials off of ebay. Now I need you good people.
Where should I start? What fly do you recommend I start with to learn the basics?
What number should I call when I snap trying to figure out what the heck a whip finish is?
What to tie depends on what kind of fishing you do. Wooly buggers are pretty universal, though and not a bad place to start. I’m sure you’ll get lots more advise, soon.
Welcome to the madness. Sounds like your wife really did her homework on what to get.
I suggest you start here http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flytying/beginners/ Our friend Al Campbell did a remarkable job in designing a beginners section that builds tying skills on tying skills. Make sure you follow the tutorials in sequence and tie more than one of each fly. The flies will get better as you tie more copies and you’ll build muscle memory, which is very important.
Your wife does know you won’t be saving any money tying your own doesn’t she?
Above all, have fun with fly tying. If it’s more trouble than it’s worth, your doing it wrong.
Check out the excellent beginner fly tying guide here on FAOL, first off. It is truly excellent.
As far as first flies, a woolly bugger is hard to argue with as a first choice. It will catch pretty much any fish you’d want to catch, and it will be effective no matter how ugly it looks coming out of the vise.
What ever you tie, keep the first one. I tied a wooly bugger for my first fly. I still have the ugly looking critter, its a big help to take it out and look at every once in a while and realize that while my flies aren’t pretty, they are better than they use to be.
I second (well third, fourth, fifth) the beginners fly tying section here. It seems as if your loving wife got you some good stuff.
I’m starting a fly tying series on my blog with photos, materials lists, etc and step by step how to tie the flies I’m picturing. I’m focusing mainly on flies for warm water fly fishing (bass, bluegill, crappie, and the like). The link is in my sig line.
I have about 6 or 8 more flies tied up and photographed. I just need to get them up. My goal is to have one every week through the winter months.
These are all very easy flies to tie (I don’t like to tie flies that will cause me to cry when I loose them in a tree).
Also, check out the fly of the week archives on this website. There are some great flies and they have good instructions on how to tie them.
One thing I will say, fish don’t really care how perfect the fly is tied or if it looks exactaly like the ones in the books.
Also, when you catch your first fish on a fly you tied, cut the fly off the tippet, put it back in your box and when you get home, put it someplace safe. There’s nothing like the feeling you get when you catch the first fish on a fly you tied yourself.
Welcome to the addiction. You are now destined to a life of poverty. You will dissapear into your fly tying area and your wife may not see you for hours on end.
The fly tying part of this message board is the absolute best source for fly tying information and the best place on the internet to ask questions and get honest, accurate, no B.S. answers.
The first flies I learned to tie were a San Juan Worm and Woolly Bugger. Later that day the guy showed me how to tie a Bead Head Partridge and Herl.
When I help with the fly tying at Scout Camp, I teach the San Juan Worm, Woolly Bugger or Woolly Worm, and a Foam Ant. All are simple to tie and all catch fish.
For great tutorials on a good selection of flies, there is this site and Charlie’s Fly Box. Another site with really good tutorials is Eric Austin’s traditionalflies.com Most of Eric’s flies do not qualify as “simple” but Eric has a good tutorial on the whip finish and the techniques he shows apply to all kinds of flies.
if you toss a message to bugman he does classes and one on ones via scype. he is ausem taught me alot. and great guy. look me up on scype as well i can help too.
Teach that lovely lady to fly fish with you. If she doesn’t want to fish, take her to the river with you and bring her favorite book or needlecraft or whatever. Thank her every day and be a blessing to her in some small way every day. You are blessed…Best Regards…
Check out your local library to see what’s availaible. My library has over a dozen of the “Hooked On” titles. Or you could just buy them, you’re going to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on this new obsesion, er, um, I mean ‘Hobby’ anyway.
The FAOL fly tying series + the fly of the week are both great, and there are a lot of great sites out there with lots of patterns. Believe it or not, YouTube is also an excellent resource if you want to see video and get a commentary while the person is tying. Search it for “fly tying” and you’ll get a long list. It really is the next best thing to having someone show you personally.
That said, even though I’m a hardcore computer geek, I’ve found that nothing beats a good book. Not only can you use it anywhere (like in the bathroom or on a camping trip) but you can put it right next to you at the vise and work directly from it.
The first one I picked up was the Orvis Fly Tying Guide because it has enough photos to qualify as a magazine. There’s three basic sections to the book:
Materials, tools and some basic techniques (like the pinch wrap). This gives a good overview of a paragraph or two on all of the most common materials used by tiers today. It also has a hook conversion chart that is fairly decent for sorting out which models/brands of hooks are interchangeable.
Lessons. There are fourteen flies starting with the Woolly Bugger and Black Nosed Dace, going through the Adams and a comparadun, then into a few saltwater flies. Lots of photos and explanations.
An pattern library with several hundred flies, a nice photo and clear recipes.
Of course, I have other books too (all praise the used bookstore), but for $20 the Orvis book is a great place to start.
First fly’s are in the box. I decided to try a y2k since I had just had some success with this pattern in Arkansas, and figured it was easy. I used youtube to find a video, and 1.5 hours later I have 3.5 y2k’s in my box. I got a little stingy with the glow plug yarn on my third one, and is ended up a little small. I managed to figure out how to keep my thread on, and as predicted, the whip finish tool gave me a headache, and I apparently developed a new technique for it, as my tool position only ended up looking like the picture twice. I picture me tying one of my y2k’s on and seeing a explosion of color im my back cast as it disintegrates. Oh well, I am officially all in!
What a fantastic wife !!! Start with the easy stuff first, like Wooley Buggers !!!
This gets you used to the tools and some of the basics like Palmer Wrapping Hackle !!!
Get some basic books like Jack Dennis Western Fly Tying, Benchside Reference etc…better yet some DVD’s on Fly Tying (AK Best, OLiver Edwards etc), and also head to a nearby LIe and Tie or Fly Tying Classes at a nearby Fly Shop !!! Good Fly Tying Web Sites are helpful, full of advise, and has opened up a whole world of different techniques to be learned !!! Above all, enjoy, relax, grab your favorite cold beverage, and thank your wife !!!
Whatever patterns for the area you intend to fish with would be the most logical ones to start with.
I’ve read many tying books over the years, but if you’re totally new to the hobby, watching a live/video demonstration is the only way to learn the basics. If you don’t know what a whip finish is, you’ll never figure it out from a series of pictures.
There is a ton of videos available on the 'net to just watch or to buy (DVD etc), but many just show you how to tie a specific pattern. They assume you already know all the basics. You want instructional videos, not pattern videos to learn the basics.
I’ve got about 6 y2k’s done, and I can’t tell them from ones I’ve purchased. I tied 3 zebra midges, but all I have for the segmented wraps is lead wire, which I find tough to work with. Only 1 looks fishable. I’ve done 1 san juan worm, and it too looks fine. I am still waiting on feathers and furs, so all I have is what I grabbed to tie these three flies. I have figured out the whipfinish tool, but am far from being comfortable with it. I can’t wait to tie a real fly, but life is good. I am watching Monday Night Football and I’ve got a hook clamped in my vise as I type. No clue what the score is though.
