I bet many people who say "don't buy kits" were told the same thing, and did it anyways.
I was.
The people who told me to not buy a kit? 100% right. On the other hand, when you're looking at endless rows of crap, it just seems like a good idea to take the easy way out.
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So, here's the deal. You need like a handful of basic tools from an actual fly shop. Two of these are optional, but just save yourself the effort and buy them.
Bobbin: The thing that you run the thread through. Buy a ceramic one. Yes it costs more, yes its worth it. You're new, right? Give yourself every advantage.
Scissors: Buy a nice set, if you can. Dr. Slick tends to be very well regarded and can be found cheap enough.
Hackle pliers: There's about a billion different styles. You'll have one of each eventually. I think the English style are probably most versatile. You can buy those electric clips at Radio Shack, but you won't. Or, you will, and hate it. Buy an English style to start, I like the smaller ones. That's just me.
Dubbing needle: You could make your own, but spend the $4. Its nicer. Trust me. Solid heft, pokey, doesn't roll. Its a simple pleasure.
Whip finisher: There's two kinds, the Materelli and the who-cares-because-it-sucks-unless-you're-an-old-dude. You could learn to whip tie with your fingers, but again, why make the learning curve steeper?
Hair stacker: Depending on your flies of choice, maybe not neccessary.
OK, so that's the low end stuff, the other thing is the big one time investment, a vise. Spend as much as you want, but you can go cheap. The real cheap jobs, the $20 kind,
are devoid of all real frills but totally work. Some guys use the **** out of these, and its all you really need to tie really, really nice flies. Also, they're cheap. It might wear out before a fancy vise, but who cares? Its like $20!
One feature you might want is "rotary." You spin it on an axis. Some people get into this, some people just use it to look at the other side of flies, some people don't care. Whatever. You can find decent rotary vises for like $75-80 now.
Finally, materials? Seriously pick some patterns you'll fish alot, and go to town buying just those materials. Spend some time researching before you goto the store and get some just generic stuff. This is where the kit is nice, you get a pile of stuff, but it really is cheap. Over sized, poor quality, whatever. I used about 60% of the materials in the kit, some I could justify, and some was just crap I'll never use.
I didn't need most of the crap I've bought, but its been fun. I could've done it for nothing. I dunno. Your wallet, spend as much as you don't want.
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