I’d guess about 40
By the way, don’t you think that prep time needs to be calculated into the total time?
Yes I do but there is only one feather per fly involved here and quality is not an issue, so prep time is relatively small
harry mason
[url=http://www.troutflies.com:481c5]http://www.troutflies.com[/url:481c5]
Them…139
me…2 foam spiders
Mike
This site’s about sharing!
My guess would be 30 at the outside. Ron
Ok, now that this is a guessing competition…I wanna know what do WE win?
And…was anybody bleeding after this frothy frenzy of feathers and hooks?
Anyway I’ll say about 90.
I fish, therefore I swam.
d’know …
last spring I tied slightly over 200 jig head maraboo flies in just under 8 hours (plus a small assortment of other ones thrown in as requested … the kids picked what they wanted and what colors). That’s about 25 per hour. OK, I’ll say 30. You’ve got to be a better tyer than I am!
Trouts don’t live in ugly places
… and the answer is, ta ta
the highest number of flies tied was 68.
The second highest was 46.
There were two tiers tied at 45.
What amazed me about the final counts was the differential between 68 and the next 3 tiers. Considering that I was among the 45/46 group: was not disturbed or delayed by the heckling; tied at full speed throughout the full hour; did not break the thread or drop any tool; take a drink of water or get interupted in any way; I am unable to figure out why there was such a marked difference between 1st and the next 3 tiers. That means the 1st place finisher was tying at a speed 1-1/2 times as fast as the average of the next 3 tiers! Obviously he did it but I’ll be dipped if I can figure out how. Amazing is all I can say.
Again, there was no ‘quality’ issue but you still had to complete the fly.
Featherchucker - Yes. There were some pri*ked(I guess since that word is forbidden I’ll substitute ‘punctured’) fingers(:
Interesting side note: The winner won a fly tying lamp. The winner from last year had won that same lamp and warned this years winner to be careful not to get burnt by the lamp because it gets exceedingly hot. He also warned about not tying anything with shiney materials because after a short time the reflection of the light off of the material will really hurt the eyes. How’s that for an endorsement?
Allan
[This message has been edited by tyeflies (edited 15 November 2005).]
Magic in 200? Nah, just insanity! Then again, I had 8 hours! And hordes of incessant kids to push me onward!
Trouts don’t live in ugly places
Thanks, Allan, for starting this topic.
I shouldn’t be here - too busy getting ready for the Symposium this weekend - but I couldn’t resist. 
Having tied commercially for 12 or so years, sometimes more than eight hours per day, I want to make a couple points. First, I believe that most “professional” factory fly tiers would kick our collective asses - bigtime - in this contest. I heard of one woman tier at a factory in Thailand who can tie 54 DOZEN Joe’s Hoppers in two days! Now, her materials are pre-selected, prepared, and materials ready to go, delivered to her work station, but is that not what Jim Krul’s boys did last Sunday in Danbury?
Regardless of how easy or difficult the pattern, experience, the more the better, IMHO, counts the most in this contest. Doing this for a living, day after day, makes one an extremely fast fly tier.
I once tied fifteen dozen drys in one day and thought it quite an accomplishment. I know a young fellow who, some years ago, was tying commercially for Blue Ribbon Flies. He procrastinated and screwed around and then had to force his face against the grindstone to get the order done on time. He slept very little, but in ten days tied 180 DOZEN dry flies. This particular person gave up commercial tying after that “burning-the-candle-at-both-ends” marathon.
Not prior to my commercial experience, but within six to eight months after I began tying commercially, I could (and still can!) tie a Comparadun in three minutes. But during an hour straight run, lose some momentum and can only tie about 16 to 18 Comparaduns per hour. I can tie a dozen Catskill drys in 35 minutes. I can tie the Lawson simplified version of a Marinaro Thorax Dun in less than three minutes.
Of course, these times are with materials prepared in advance. Hackles selected, but not trimmed.
My fastest pace was five dozen flies per hour, they were size #24 Midge Larva. I did thirty dozen of those in one day of just under six hours tying.
All that said, I think I could have approached five dozen thread body Soft-hackles in this contest.
So I agree with the guy who said 60, but will make my guess a little lower to be different.
I say 54 flies tied by the winner.
PS - every fly I tie is technically correct. If a fly I tie doesn’t pass my personal strict quality control, it won’t go into the “sell” bin. I usually stop & repeat a particular step if necessary to have each fly that leaves my vise be a well tied fly. I feel there should be quality control on this contest, flies not meeting the criteria of correct proportions should be canned.
“If you can’t tie a good fly, speed is insignificant.” That’s a quote from me. I just made it up.
DB
Well, back to the vise…
Silly me.
This post was two pages long and I didn’t notice. Posted my reply after the answer was posted. I can be such a dork. LOL!
DB
Tyeflies,
You stated very clearly that the tiers were given a hen neck so I included the stripping time of the neck ( less than a minute) in the hour allotted. I’m not sizing individual feathers, merely stripping them from the neck and and placing them on the work space in front of me so I don’t have to continuously pick up the neck and pluck a feather.
Allow me to respond to a coupleof things:
Hywell - You asked “Why”?
> Simple reason was that those who participated thought it would be a fun thing to do. It was.
Don - You wrote, “First, I believe that most “professional” factory fly tiers would kick our collective asses - bigtime - in this contest.” and “Regardless of how easy or difficult the pattern, experience, the more the better, IMHO, counts the most in this contest”.
> In general I would agree with that assessment depending how you defined ‘Bigtime’. However, in this limited time frame and overly simple pattern, I don’t think they would. I say this not because I participated, but because there comes a point in physical abilities when nearly all participants differ by just a small percent.
You reference a tier in Thailand and said, “Now, her materials are pre-selected, prepared, and materials ready to go, delivered to her work station, but is that not what Jim Krul’s boys did last Sunday in Danbury?”
> We each prepared the thread in our bobbin. The hooks and a hen neck were placed in front of us. No presorting.
Jim C - In regard to ‘prep time’ I was refering to commercial tying in general. Not in this specific instance when there was basically, as you said, no real prep time required. For instance, some tiers will spend 1/2 hour prepping hackle, tailing and winging materials prior to tying 5 dozen dry flies. Then they will spend 4 hours tying. Well sorry. Although the pre-sorting saved the tier some time, that job took 4-1/2 hours.
Allan
Tyeflies,
One other point - you didn’t say what size thread was being used. I assumed it was at least6/0 or larger. Building a thread body of 8/0 thread would be quite time consuming.
I just went to my bench and tied about a dozen of the specified flies. With 6/0 thread I was averaging about 70 seconds, with size “B” Uni thread about 56 to 58 seconds.
The winner of the contest was really smoking! Do you know his name?
Jim,
We were using Danville 6/0. Assuming you tied at that same speed throughout the session: no thread breaking; no hackle breaking; no drink of water; no peering up to answer a question or laugh at a fun-loving heckler; no glitches of any kind; then the speed you mention, 70 seconds per fly, equals 54 flies.
That would’ve been good for 2nd place.The winner was the older of the Rist brothers. I forgot his first name. They tie amazing flies,especially for their ages which I believe are 14 and 16.
Allan
It’s hard for me to believe the person tied more than one fly per minute for a sustained 60 minutes without losing that pace at all.
Jude
Late to bed,
Early to Rise,
Guide all day,
Tie more flies!
www.customflys.com
Alan,
I should have walked down behind you and watched… No matter how simple the fly it is hard to imagine one fly in slightly less than a minute, every minute, for an hour. Just picking up a hook from the other glob of hooks, putting it in the vise, then removing it after tying…has to use up several seconds, that is if the hook comes out of the pile clean. I didn’t get a chance to look at the completed flies this year but I did see the pheasant tail nymphs they did this same thing with last year… Frank Sawyer would have been shaking his head. A fly a minute…Amazing! Damn, Now you got me wanting to see if I can even get a dozen of those simple things done in an hour…LOL.
Me 6 ,
Winner 73
Oops didnt see the second page .
[This message has been edited by Gnu Bee Flyer (edited 15 November 2005).]
Hywell,
A ‘quality’ type competition may be enjoyable for some people. However, then you have people making a judgemental evaluation that frequently become subjective. This quantity competition was cut and dry. Who knows,maybe next year the organizer will put some criteria other than sheer number of flies tied into the contest.
Allan
A bit OT, but few years back I ran into a fellow who was tying at a shops booth at an ISE show in San Mateo. He had a pile of #16 PMD Parachutes in front of him. We got to talking and came to find he had contracted for 10,000 of the little guys. He told me he had one year?s time to fill the order. At the time I was doing contract stuff as well, so we commiserated about big fly orders and how we disliked taking them on and so on.
His contract would pay for a few years worth of college so he was all for it …till… he began to see how much like work it was. He could tie one of those in about 45 seconds… give or take, problem was, he had too! 
You would think given a whole year, one could sail through the order but then you sit down and realize you must build 28 flies a day…everyday? for a year. Given prep and all he had to tie for an hour a day. Not much you say, but if you miss a day or a week … well you get the idea.
I will bet he finished but I will also bet he will never do that again? in fact I doubt he tyed or fished a PMD parachute again
harry mason
[url=http://www.troutflies.com:79644]http://www.troutflies.com[/url:79644]
Okay! We’ve got it down to 45 seconds! Who will break the 30 second mark!!!
Takes me that long just to separate a hook, put it in my vise and attach my thread!
Well I was wrong but I didn’t see that quality was not important. While I can tie just over two dozen Elk hair Caddis an hour after I have things set up. To me quilty is the most important thing. Without it I do not feel the flies tied are worth having or selling. But that is the way I was taught to tie. I would have lost big time because of that one thing. Speed without quilty is just another person throwing materails at a hook. Just the way I was taught. 
Ron
[This message has been edited by RonMT (edited 16 November 2005).]