Getting started tying flies

[afishinado]

A lot of posters seem to be interested in starting to tie flies and alot of good advice has been given. Here’s what I came up with to get you started without wasting money on buying a kit:

Tools:

-Vise (decent one – fixed head is okay but one that has a head that rotates is better, and a rotary vise is great, but not necessary to start off with because of the cost)

-2 pair of Scissors (decent pair of fine scissors for fine work and cheaper heavy pair that you use around the house to cut heavy materials)

-Bobbin (decent one - ceramic or flared tip)

-Hackle pliers (English style with the spring loop without sharp edges)

-Matarelli whip finisher

-Dubbing needle (you can make one out of a good sized needle mounted in a pen)

-Hair stacker (use a plastic or metal cylinder or large caliber shell casing)

-Box cutter or Exacto knife

-Dubbing Twister (make from a paperclip and a bolt or screw)

-Hackle guard (straw or swizzle sticks)

Of the above tools only the vise, small scissors, bobbin, hackle pliers, and whip finisher need to be purchased. The rest of the stuff you may have in your house or can be made from stuff you have.


Supplies:

Head cement – (clear nail polish works fine – I usually don’t use cement on the head of most of my flies but it is needed for many other uses)

Permanent markers - Sharpies or any other brand work fine

Thread – 3/0 for heavier flies and 6/0 for smaller flies – I use finer thread, but use the heavier stuff at first until you get a feel for tying. I would buy a spool of each size thread in black and white. A lot of flies use black, and white thread can be touched up with a permanent marker to make it any color.

Hooks: See below - Mustad or bargin fly hooks are okay to start with


Materials:

Look at the recipe and the tying instructions of the flies you want to tie, and buy materials for them. Some suggestions of flies to start with:

CLICK ON PATTERN FOR LINK TO MATERIALS AND TYING INSTRUCTIONS

Wooly Bugger
Black marabou / black and olive chenille / black saddle hackle./ flashabou / # 8 streamer hooks


Hares Ear Nymph
HE dubbing / fine copper wire / partridge coated with cement works for wing case / #12 & #14 nymph hooks (copper wire works well on a HE). You can buy some medium sized beads and tie a bead head without the wing case to change up the pattern.


Pheasant Tail Nymph
Pheasant tail / copper wire / peacock herl / #14 nymph hook.

Pheasant Tail Soft Hackle:
Pheasant tail / copper wire / peacock herl / copper wire #12 & #14 nymph hooks
(Same as PT without wing case and a turn or two of partridge for legs near the eye)

San Juan Worm
Red chenille / #12 nymph hooks

Green Weenie
Chartreuse chenille / #12 nymph hooks

Lead wire on some of these patterns is optional. The above patterns can be tied with three packs of hooks (#8 streamer hooks and #12 & #14 nymph hooks). I'd stay with the larger sizes until you become more proficient and can tie on smaller hooks.

Master these flies and you’re on your way! No wasted $ on tools you don’t need, or are too cheap to be useful. No wasted $ on materials you will never use. Every one of these patterns is guaranteed to catch fish in PA. If your first flies aren’t perfect at first, don’t worry. I, and most other tiers fuss to tie perfect flies, but they always seem to work even better after they’ve been messed up by the fish. Good luck.

 

[jayL]

Great post.

I'd add a pack of peacock herl and a pheasant tail. Both area cheap, and both are needed for the PT nymph, which I think may be the best fly out there when it comes to easy to effective ratio, aside from the bugger at least.

 

[flyfishermanj]

GREAT POST!!! This one should be stickyed!

JH

 

[mute]

thanks, just ordered all my supplies.

 

[mute]

Can someone answer what it means for Thread 3/0 6/0, etc. Im guessing its the size of the thread. Is there some chart that converts the size to the size of hook youd be tying.

 

[flyfishermanj]

mute,

For a beginner, don't worry too much about the size thread you are using. Use whatever you have, I mosty tie with 6/0.
As for a chart, I'm sure there is one, maybe someone else will post it. But just stick with whatever doesn't break and you feel most comfortable tying with. When you progress to tying some of the smaller more delicate flies you can worry about thread thickness and weight.

3/0 is thick and durable
6/0....
8/0...
10/0 is thin and delicate

hope this clears things up a little for ya.

JH

 

[mute]

Yea that helps thanks. And is this stuff any different then your normal sewing thread?

 

[flyfishermanj]

Sewing thread tends to be a little thicker, but no its the same stuff.

JH

 

[JackM]

I could be wrong, but tying threads are typically made of nylon whereas sewing threads may be all cotton or part cotton as well as other materials. Cotton is more fragile, tends to fray a bit and will absorb water, so if you use sewing threads, pay attention to the material they are made of and how they perform for you. I am pretty sure you want to avoid cotton, but polyester and other synthetic materials may work well.

 

[jayL]

If you pick up Ed Engle's "tying small flies", he has an entire chapter on threads. He does some pretty in-depth tests, as well as some explanations of the pros and cons of each. I'd recommend going to a bookstore and skimming that chapter.

Overall, it's my favorite tying book to date.

 

[ian_brown]

If I had it to do over again, I'd start with this kit from Dr Slick.

I've been very happy with every product from this company, and it's cheaper to buy the right stuff the first time.

 

[RLeeP]

That really is an excellent and comprehensive opening post and if being "stickyed" is the forum equiv. of lamination for posterity, I'm all for it.

I have a general question though..

Do most of you folks actually use a hair stacker? I never have. I've never found a situation where hairs were out of alignment that could not be quickly remedied with a snip of the scissors and I've never had a fish (to my knowledge) refuse an elk hair caddis that had that sort of sawed-off look to the wing...

 

[shipnfish2006]

RLeeP wrote:
Do most of you folks actually use a hair stacker?

I use one sometimes if I'm typing something that I want the hair even, but being a cheap college student when I started tying I made one out of two empty shotgun shells. A 20 gauge shell with the base cut off and then put it inside a 12 gauge shell.

But like you said about the chopped look on the caddis, I've also never experience a fish that refused one for that reason. I think it's more of an anal kind of thing that mostly depends on how pretty you want it to look, the trout could care less about what it looks like as long as it's presented well.

 

[JackM]

I must be quirky because I have cheap dull scissors, a cheap non-ceramic bobbin, rarely use hackle pliers, but any time I use deer/elk hair, I always even out the tips with my stacker. I have awaken the family many times pounding it on my tying desk on an early weekend morning.

 

[fly_flinger]

As a relatively new tyer, I agree with using the heaviest thread you are comfortable with. I started using 6/0 for most flies but noticed the bodies were thicker than they should be so I switched to 8/0. I think because I'm a new tyer, I tend to add more turns than needed to secure material which will obviously result in thicker bodies.

RLeeP,
Are you cutting the tips of hair or fur after they are attached to the hook? For an EHC, I guess it wouldn't matter too much but I was told to never cut the tips of anything. I'm not entirely sure why but I think it has something to do with breaking the miniscus and water absorbtion.

Has anyone else heard this too?

 

[RLeeP]

>>RLeeP,
Are you cutting the tips of hair or fur after they are attached to the hook? For an EHC, I guess it wouldn't matter too much but I was told to never cut the tips of anything. I'm not entirely sure why but I think it has something to do with breaking the miniscus and water absorbtion.>>

Yes, that's what I do. I mean, if for example I'm tying a hairwing caddis or an upright hairwing dry (like a wulff), I'll eyeball the length of hair I'm using before I secure it on the hook. This way, there isn't a whole lot of cutting to be done afterwards. Often, if my eyeball length assessment turns out a little long, I'll (on a downwing fly..) make a couple loops with the thread to hold the hair and then pull it forward to the length I desire and cut off the excess from the butt ends.

All this might be partially because I began tying when there were no commercial hair stackers nor anybody saying they were a thing to have. He**, I'm still not sure how I feel about power windows on cars. So, I may just be a relic...

I've never heard this surface-tension/absorption thing, but maybe in a fly with perpendicularly placed hair legs it may be so. But it doesn't seem right to me. Seems unduly fussy to be truthful. I'm not much for fussy when it comes to tying. Ask anybody who's seen my flies...

 

[jayL]

To be honest, my EHC used to look just fine before I started using a stacker. I found, actually, that I could use thicker parts of the hairs for better visibility (they are lighter) and bouyancy.

I might go back to doing it that way and see if it makes a difference.

 

[afishinado]

RleeP

I usually use a hair stacker for hair wings. My first HS was a cut down .410 ga. shell – now a have a fancy one with a funnel type insert, but it does the same job. When I use the stacker, all the tips line up, and when I remove it from the stacker, I hold the hair by the tips and stroke the hair to remove all the fuzz and shorts. It works okay, but using one is not a necessity – you’re not missing that much by never using one – IMO.

 

[JeffK]

Hair stackers do a neat job, but I have basically gone to pushing the hair against my palm. In most flies it is easier to cut the hair to length before it is tied in. Neater and quicker, but takes so practice.

Cutting hair and hackle takes away the nice taper to the fibers and doesn't look attractive to a traditionalist. It's just the way it is done. The fish don't care, and there are patterns where the hair or hackle is clipped to make the legs look stubbier (look up Paco Sorio's(sp?) ugly flies). Real insect legs don't taper to a fine point and the rubber legged nymphs show the fish don't care about a clean cut end to a leg. For legs on an elk or deer haired caddis let a few hairs stay long and scrunch them under the head. They make pretty good looking legs.

I have found the fine bow-spring type scissors to work really well for fine work. Good scissors make cutting easier. If you buy cheap scissors check that the ends match up and come to a fine point. The variability among those cheap embroidery scissors is great, but you can usually cherry pick a better pair. More expensive scissors are more uniform.

Most tying and sewing threads are polyester these days, so that isn't a problem. Cotton isn't all that bad either (regardless of what I was taught years ago). Most of the midges from Holbrook and Koch's Midge Magic and the Yong midges are tied from cotton embroidery yarn or Coats and Clark sewing thread, and they work and hold up just fine. The problem is that sewing threads are much bigger than tying threads. The smallest sewing thread you can find works out to be around a 3/0, which is the larger than is suitable for 90% of my flies.

The numbered sizes are somewhat arbitrary and vary manufacturer to manufacturer. The newer standards use denier, which I think is the weight in grams of 900m of thread.