I am extreamly new to the joys of fly tieing and found your site to be wounderfull. but i have a question. I picked up a pocket guide to fly tieing by labrador outdoor writen by john van vliet. (isbn# 0-7624-1859-1) First I must say it is a rather cute kit and does teach you how to tie a basic fly but I am confused maybe it is because the pictures are not good or the amount of thread they give you is only 3"long. But my finished fly does not come out the way they discribe. so I am giving you the plans in hopes that you can make some sence and maybe be able to show me how its done properly aswell the correct name for this fly. thank you for your time and help
all purpouse nymph
hook size 10 wet fly hook
thread black 3/0
body green micr chenill
thorax peacock herl
collar hungaren phesent.
1 clamp hook in jaws of jice at bent
2 grasp the thread in both hands ans wrap the long end over the shank of the hook away from you
3. wrap back over the first turns of thread and cut tag end wrapping near bend
4. place chenille on top of hook shank neare ben and secure with thread. wrap thread halfway to eye.
5. wrap the chenill forward over the hook to a point halfway to the eye secure with thread. and trim chinille excess
6. tie in strand of peacock herl and secure with several wraps of thread. trimm off tag end of herl. wrap thread forward 1/4" from eye.
7. wrap herl around hook to 1/3 of hook leangth behind eye. secure with thread.
8. tie in partridge by the tip. wrap thread forward to hook eye. make two or three turns of of the feather to just behind hook eye, brushing feather back twords hook bend with the fingers of the left hand. secure with a dozen or so wraps of thread. trim excess feather.
9. make several more wraps of thread to form head and tie a slip knot or two to secure.
10. trim thread and remove from vice.
Charlaine, On the opening page of this website is a menu along the left hand side. Go to this menu and click on fly tying beginning. Follow Al Campbell’s clear and concise instructions and all your questions will be answered. By the way, 3" of thread is not enough to tie even a simple nymph:confused:
Hi Charlaine, welcome to FAOL. Have you found this yet: http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flytying/beginners/ you will find much better tying instructions here. I’ll try to tie that fly after lunch and post a picture of my version but it won’t help you nearly as much as clearer instructions.
i have read every page and found it greatly helpful but this fly i’m talking about i cannot find anywhere. I know i’ll beable to do things better once the set I just woon off of ebay comes in. as right now I have been useing aligator clip vice and hand tieing. I will take a cpl pic of the two flies I tied and let you see how i did.
The beginner’s series here is a great way to start. It will teach you what you need to know and answer most of your questions.
As for your ‘all purpose nymph’…even carefully following instructions, none of our ‘first flies’ (or even first couple of dozen) ‘looked’ like the pattern fly.
Like any other endeavor, fly tying takes skills that only come through practice.
One nice thing, though, the fish seldom care if the fly looks just right…so fish the flies you make, regardless of how they look.
Buddy
P.s; Apparently I was typing this as Charlaine was responding to Paddy’s post…don’t get fixated on that one fly. I have no clue what fly it is, and there are several hundreds of thousands of different fly paterns out there. You could search for years only to find that the guy who put your kit together made up this particular fly because he thought it would be an easy ‘starting fly’ for a beginner. All flies serve a purpose, and there are many flies that will work for most situations. Good luck! BS
thanks means alot. its funny since coming home from iraq I have had more spare time then I like and am finally starting hobbies i dreamed about for years this being one of them but like my model rockets I’m sort of well perfectionest lol. but you are right still i would like to better understand this fly.
Is this what you’re trying for? I tried to follow the directioins though I had to use medium chenille. I would have used several strands of peacock herl to get a thicker body and fewer turns of hackle but this will fish.
Some additions to the instructions that might help: tie in a bit of thread before tying in peacock herl and counterwind over herl for more duarability. I would use several strands of herl twisted into a rope and then counterwound but follwed directions here. Stroke the fibers back from the tip of the partridge hackle at the point you are going to tie in at so you don’t trap all of the fibers. Tie it in with the stem extending over the eye of the hook with the concave side down. Use your fingers to stroke the fibers toward the hook bend as you wind the partridge and use the thread to help trap them back before building up a tapered head. Most tyers would use fewer turns of hackle on this kind of fly as too many fibes can inhibit the action of the fly. Again I tried to just follow the instructions and note the things I did to mske them work.
You’ve gotten pretty much the same advice that I would have suggested so I’ll just take this opportunity to welcome you to the best fly fishing/tying site on the Internet. We’ve got great information and wonderful people here. Please join us regularly with commments, suggestions and questions. I would urge you to look around RI and find a fly shop or club that offers fly tying lessons. A little personal coaching can really decrease the learning curve. BTW, your military service is greatly appreciated by many of us here at FAOL. Keeping tying. Remember, even the funny looking flies will catch fish! 8T
that is just what it is suspose to look like bit i can see now why it didn’t come out like that as they give you fine chinille and they dont tell you about useing the heckel rope As for the feather I understand just what your saying better then the instructions and know now that i gave mine wings lol. again thank you soo much. I need to remember where i put the two i tied the other day but I did try again useing a reguler pan fish hook and she came out much better. i’ll try to get a decent picture when i can. From what I have found their are no clubs in my area but I am easily able to book learn and have the fly tieing bible on my computer. also the kit I just won on ebay though very old should be good till I can afford a better setup.
As for thanking me for my service Thank you It means allot honestly.
I remember approving your membership a couple days ago and am happy to see you post on the BB. As you will find, you will get a lot of help from a lot of people. ( many are ex service people)
I agree with all the above posts. Keep asking and we will all atempt to help.
I suggest going through some of the Fly Of The Week, (click on archives) after bringing up the this week (click photo, upper left hand corner). There are a lot of photos of how to and sequence of how to tie in these archives. Just by looking and then trying to duplicate the steps shown should help.
Above all else, enjoy. If it gets too frustrating, lay it down for a bit. The fly/vise will draw you back. Try for perfection which will come after making all the mistakes one can make, some many times. I know after tying for over 64 years. Yes, I am still learning.
Sure happy to have you join our merry lil group.
Feel free to contact me by regular e-mail any time with questions. I will atempt to answer.
Finally, after years of tying, I bit the bullet and bought a Renzetti Traveler so that I could experience the benefits of a quality, full-rotary vise. I’ve been using the vise now for about four and a half months. I’ve experimented with the rotary feature to wind tinsel, dubbing, hackle and everything else except the kitchen sink. After my months experimentation, I’ve concluded that I would rather do most of my tying with the fly sitting still than twirling that darn lever. Now don’t get me wrong, I do like to be able to inspect the far side of the fly for eveness and symmetry with relative ease but most of the time I tie with the rotation knob locked down. Anyone else use their rotary vise in a non-rotary fashion most of the time? 8T
If I am out in left field, please do be offended, as I do not mean to insult, but I noticed that you mentioned that the thread was 3". Also noticed that the pattern called for black 3/0 thread.
Just wondering if you took the “3/0” as three inches. The value 3/0 indicates the type of thread for the pattern, not the length.
Thread sizes are usually indicated by designations as “6/0”, “14/0”, “3/0”, “8/0”, etc. Fly patterns usually list thread color and little else, but sometimes do indicate thread size also. Lately some new thread sizes are being indicated by names such as “big fly”, etc.
Again, no offense intended, and I am assuming that you knew this, but just decided to add it on the very slight chance that you didn’t.
Hope the beginning tying is going well. I also learned primarily by reading a book, and so believe it is a good way to learn.
BTW, I also appreciate your service to the country, as I would guess lots of others do as well.
Thanks looks like I wont be going to that bait shoop any longer as i was told they no longer met. i will be joining and start attending their meeting soon.
Welcome to our fellowship. I believe you will find that this is a very good place to be, with some very great people here.
With all due respect to the author of your fly tying book, the pictured fly is not a nympth. It is called a Soft-Hackle fly. One of the sure give-a-way signs is the use of Hungarian Partridge for the hackle. It is one of the distinguishing features of this type of fly. In fact, I believe that pattern is simply the Hungarian Green, sans gold ribbing. Most Soft-Hackle patterns are basically just a body, and hackle. It has none of the parts of a true nympth pattern.
The closest thing to an all-around nympth pattern is either the Hare’s Ear, or Pheasant Tail nympths. Nympth flies have a tail, a segmented abdomen section, a well defined thorax section, covered by a wing case, and with a ‘beard’ in front. These are the defining characteristics of nympth flies.
The ‘Begginers’ section of this website has the best instructions you will ever come across. You are definitly in the right place to learn to tie flies correctly. And if you need help with them, you can pretty much get help 24/7 here on the forums.
cant wait to tie them