I followed my wife into the local hobby lobby in the Jackson MS area today, and all I can say is yatzee! I found all kinds and colors of hackle, and much higher quality then I got off ebay, Goose biots, peakock herl and beads galore. I ended up buying some black hackle, white hackle some beads and a tiara…which was a result of me becoming intoxicated by the candles and potpurrie.
Hi All,
This is not a substitution, but one thing I do to save a few dollars is dying bugger hackle to the color I need. I bought a couple of Ewing bugger capes a few years ago in white, and then used Rit or Kool Aid to dye the few feathers I need in the various colors I use.
I don’t tie a big number of buggers, so one bugger cape will give me enough bugger feathers in the 7 or 8 colors I use to keep me going for a long time.
For me it makes more sense to buy $15 worth of feathers and $15 worth of dye than to spend $120 worth of bugger hackle that is way more hackle than I will use for years.
Then I have the dye left over for other projects as well.
Regards,
Gandolf
I was in the Bass Pro and the fly fishing “area” was small, this was at Christmas while visiting the inlaws. Granted our selection is small in Texas but man that was tiny. My 11 yr old hooked into about 11 pearch in my Father In -Laws friends pond on a fly I tied, of course it was the only one I had. my FIW wanted me to ship him a dozen.
Rick
The key to finding good fly fishing/tying stuff at Bass Pro is to stay out of the fly tying area.
If you have the time to wander about, it’s a treasure trove of stuff.
A lot of what we use in fly tying is also used in the making of various lures. Bass Pros stores always have a decent sized lure building section. In it you can find eyes, reflective tapes and shapes (the die cut reflective scale pattern shapes made to put on spinner blades fits nicely on the side of a zonker type minnow), and such. Small metal beads, lead wire in several sizes for making eyes, thin wire spinner shafts have dozens of uses, soft plastic liquid so you can make gummy minnows without spending $6 for a 2 X 6 inch piece of the stuff. They have the kink shank popper hooks in with the lure building stuff. Yopu’ll also find a wide aray of jig hooks there. I’m tying lots of flies on jig hooks these days.
Next time you are there, wander through their bulk hook area. Standard sproat hooks in sizes down to 16. Perfect for wets, nymphs, and spun deer hair in the larger sizes. Aberdeen hooks, one of my favorites for a wide array of flies, especially small poppers and panfish flies, in several shank lengths. Some of the saltwwater bait hooks are heavy wire hooks that work great for things like flatwing streamers and heavy larger nymphs. Bend looks a lot like a scud hook, just heavier. There are always sales on the j bend worm hooks. These work great for a lot of patterns, especially ones where you want the hook point to ride upwards. They make great popper hooks too, giving you a hook that won’t twist and a wider hook gape. If you take the time to look, you can find some great hooks for not too much.
In the weights and floats/baitfishing area you can buy those cute little corky type indicators. But since they aren’t in the fly fishing section, they call them floats and charge about ten cents apeice for them. They have what they call clamshell shot, which is just oval split shot in small sizes. Much cheaper than fly fishing split shot.
Look in with the spinnerbaits. Bass guys are given to buying lots of baits, and also buying lots of stuff to customize those baits. You can find spinnerbait skirts in a myriad of colors, each with forty to a hundred twenty strands of rubber material. Basically the same stuff you pay four dollars for in a fly shop, but three to five skirts will set you back a couple of bucks. And the color selection is better. Only drawback is you have to deal with the collar that holds it all together ;).
Flourocarbon fishing line for tippet material. 300 yards or so for around ten bucks, and it’s good stuff. If you are into tying up your own leaders, the saltwater section has tippet spools in sizes from 6 to 180 pound test.
Saltwater trolling lures. Always have some marked down, and sometimes whats on the skirt of one of these one to three dollar attractors is more than in a whole package of flash material. Then there are the rubber skirted ones. Soft yet tough material for making bodies in a wide array of colors.
I can, and have, spent several hundred dollars on fly tying materials at a Bass Pro and never even bothered to blow the dust off the stuff in the fly fishing section.
Buddy
Two things:
1- Don’t think that because a recipe calls for the materials listed that you can’t tie a decent fly by using what you have on hand - substitution.
2- Make sure you look through the myriad of Fly of The Week patterns as well as all of the other good information listed on the Home Page of FAOL - this is a newbie flytiers best reference for patterns, materials and instructions.
Most of all, don’t get discouraged. Start with simple patterns and repeat them quite a few times, and then fish those bugs you’ve tied, even if they don’t quite look like the reference picture. There’s nothing better than catching that first fish with a fly that you tied.
Good Luck,
Kelly.
Mine have always rusted-out on me when I used them to tye with. It’s hard to believe that I’ve actually kept a fly away from the trees long enough for it to rust, but it has happened.
My best woolly buggers use mohair yarn instead of chenille for the body. That stuff can last for dozens of fish (or 1 tree).
Ed