Greetings all!
I got into flyfishing last summer and I am trying to to my own flies. I am working on a low budget and would appreciate all comments to the flies I have already made. I just need to get to the waters edge and make sure that the fish like them as well.
LiquidSteel,
Welcome aboard! And welcome to the addiction. Low budget is a humble start, but the addiction WILL take over and you’ll be selling you blood to feed it. :lol:
The flies look good, but as you stated you’ll need to fish them to see if they work. I suspect they’ll do fine.
Again, welcome aboard.
Welcome. Great to have you here. Stick around for awhile and most of these guys will have you as crazed about it as they are! 
I’m in the same boat as a college student, married with 2 kids and trying to just tread water. Couple things I’d recommend:
1: Spend the money to buy good thread from the fly shop. Don’t use sewing thread as most of it is too thick and not strong enough. This is the single best thing I’ve found for keeping flies neat. (I had a tendency to overload the heads with the thicker thread)
2: Search for the “Free, Unusual tying Materials Thread” here in Fly Tying section. That is a gold mine.
Again, welcome aboard and good luck.
welcome to the site, garage sales, goodwill and dollar stores are a goldmine of tying materials, update your profile to show the area your in, perhaps someone on this board will be available to fish with you.
eric
for Low budget fly fishing ideas go to Extremely Low Budget Fly Fishers Profile and go to his website via the link on his profile.
its gotsome great stuff on there.
I think this is the site you just mentioned http://edengelman.com/
Thanks, the site is amazing… specialy the human hais caddis
By the way… I’m new into fly tying too, and I’m starting to get addicted 
LiquidSteel… nice flies, I hope fish like them too
I am new here also even though I read this site for about the last year and a half. I started off tying crappie jigs and caught the bug so to speak to tie flies and that led to fly fishing which I am just starting.
Have fun!
Skip
Hey LiquidSteel,
Welcome to the board. Your flies look pretty good and very ?fishy?.
Tell us a little about what you?ll be fishing for. With a name like that I?m thinking steelhead, but it looks like you?re in Nebraska.
You probably have already checked it out, but there are some great info here on FAOL for beginning fly tyers. Go back to the Main Page, click on ?Fly Tying?, and explore the links to ?Basic Fly Tying Kit? and ?Beginning Fly Tying?.
You?ll get lots of helpful info on tools, and step-by-step instructions, with excellent photos of tying a selection of different flies. In addition to having a good assortment to fish with, the flies are chosen to teach different techniques that will really help you learn a wide range of skills. After you work you?re way through the beginners section, there are also intermediate and advanced lessons. Also, click on the picture of the ?the fly of the week? to get step by step instructions to tying that fly and to access the library of previous FOTWs with detailed steps and pics.
You may also want to page back through this forum to see other threads on getting started. And by all means, post questions here, there are a lot of very knowledgeable folks here willing to help out.
If there?s a fly shop near you they may have tying classes in the winter, or consider joining a local fly fishing club or local chapter of Federation of Fly Fishers or Trout Unlimited. The web or your local fly shop should have info. Most of these groups have tying classes, or informal tying prior to meetings. You?ll learn a lot, and meet a few new friends.
As far as advice goes, I?d focus on a single simple pattern, and tying several copies of it, until you?ve ?got it down?. A fly like a woolly bugger is fairly easy pattern and a real fish catcher for all kinds of stuff from trout, panfish, bass, steelhead etc. It has inexpensive materials, you can use a package of strung hackle, some chenille and some marabou, and looks a lot like the one you tied in the middle row on the right. Black and Olive are great colors, you could use black hackle on both, and get black and olive green chenille and marabou. You can tie them up with and with out bead heads to get unweighted flies that fish higher in the water column, and ones that sink. You can also use coneheads to get into really deep water. Sizes 8 10 12 14 in 2x or 3x long shanked streamer/nymph hooks are all good sizes, with bass liking the larger ones, and pan fish liking smaller sizes. If I were to pick one size it would be 10 to start. Here are some instructions found here on FAOL http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flytyin … art13.html
Some suggestions for keeping costs down (to start with anyway):
Consider buying Mustad hooks in packages of 25 to start to get a range of sizes and styles for the least upfront investment, though more expensive ?per hook? than 100 packs. They?re less expensive than ?premium? hooks, but still very good. Think about the flies that are recommended for the fish you will be fishing for to get the sizes you?ll want to use. Not knowing what you?ll be fishing for, here are some general recommendations to cover medium-small bass, trout and panfish:
a simple bucktail streamer for bass and trout and another one to try for bass, panfish and crappie is the Crappie Candy http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flytyin … 1fotw.html on these hooks. Some other easy to tie patterns that are relatively inexpensive to tie for bass and trout on these hooks are:
Clousers http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flytyin … 1fotw.html
, Mickey Finns http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flytyin … 1fotw.html
and BlackNose Dace http://www.flyanglersonline.com/feature … rt129.html
Dry Flies: You?ll probably want to learn how to tie dry flies with dry fly hackle. A good way to get started is to buy a ? neck of grizzly and a ? neck of brown, for the price of a full neck. Many shops will do this in grade 2 or 3 necks, and will give you the two most useful colors. Denny, the moderator of this forum will sell two ? capes in Grade 2 for about $45. Grade 3 whole capes go for about $26 but you may not be able to split them (some fly shops might). Capes will give you the maximum range of sizes in terms of tying dries. Saddles, though less expensive, generally won?t have the same range of feathers, and typically you won?t be able to split ? saddles to get 2 different colors for the price of a whole saddle. Whole saddles typically go for $32 (Grade 2) or $24 (Grade 3) You may want to give Denny a call http://www.conranch.com to get his advice based on the flies you want to tie. A grade 3 whole saddle or two may work very well for you.
But if the $?s are a problem for now, you can still tie dries with out hackle, (though you?ll probably want to soon enough anyway) Here are some suggestions:
foam spiders for panfish like this http://www.flyanglersonline.com/feature … rt182.html using your #9672 hooks one size smaller than the hooks recommended (since they?re 3x long instead of 2x long).
Other options are using fine deer body hair on your #94840 hooks (sold as Coastal Deer Hair or Comparadun Hair) to tie hackleless dry flies to imitate mayflies with ?sparkle duns? like this http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flytyin … art29.html and caddis with a X Caddis pattern like this great version tied by FAOL member Ginseng found here viewtopic.php?f=5&t=19400&p=184691&hilit=
These are great patterns, and you can vary wing (comaparadun hair) shade (dark medium light) and body dubbing color and hook size to imitate virtually any mayfly or caddis. A patch of 3x3 ? deer hair will set you back about $4.00 and has enough hair to tie 100+ dries. The downside is that they won?t float as well in heavy water as hackled patterns, but the upside is that they often outfish them on slower water because of their low profile. I use them a lot. Start out with a medium patch and try a few size 12?s for panfish and trout, working your way into smaller sizes as you get it down.
Another option, good for smaller dry flies, is to use CDC feathers (Cul de Canard is fancy smanchy French for duck butt.) These are feathers around the oil gland, and are sold in small packages for around $3. Substitute CDC for comparadun hair on small flies it?s a lot easier to work with than deer hair tying the same patterns as above. I usually use CDC for size 20 and under, but try it on a 14 if you?re having trouble with the hair versions. These feathers won?t look pretty dry, but will float in the film on the water. Pick up a pack of light dun colored ones.
Streamers- Marabou is a very versatile material, very fishy, and you can substitute it for bucktail if you don?t have the BT in the color you want, though you?ll want more of that too. A ? oz pkg runs about $2 compared to $4.50 or more for a BT. Consider picking up some different colors, white, yellow, red (in addition to your olive and black for wooly buggers) to substitute on streamers that use bucktail, like Clousers, Mickey Finns and Black Nosed Dace.
Alternatives to Fly shops, include hardware stores for bead chain, craft stores for balls of yarn, xmas tinsel etc. to save a few $?s, but in the long run it?s hopeless?.
Hope this helps. Your flies look like you?re off to a great start, and it looks like you?ve got a creative mind. Am looking forward to what else you come up with. Keep the pics and questions coming.
Good luck.
peregrines
Thanks for the helpful hints to all. I hope to be here on this site soon, posting photos of fish that I have caugt with my new flies. The weather hasnt been cooperating and neither have the fish. :shock:
I like to fish for anything. Bass, carp, bluegills, catfish , walleye, bullheads… I want to target fish that eat bugs, so that should leave me open for quite a few species. I just want to learn more about fly-fishing and all aspects there of.
P.S.
I got/created the nickname Liquidsteel from a comic book hero I created waaaaaaaaaaay back in the 8th grade.
Kenny