Fly Tying Kit for beginners
 

Hello all. I've been a freshwater angler for some time now and am ready
to try my hand at fly fishing. I live in North Georgia were there are
several trout streams and even a river within a 5-10 minute walk from
my house.
Anyways, this month I'll be headed to Bass Pro Shops to pick out fly
fishing gear but thought that in the meantime, I'd like to order a
beginners fly-tying kit, preferrably with an instructional DVD so I can
go ahead and learn the ropes of fly tying and have a few flies on me
before I get out on the water.
Something along these lines:
http://www.basspro.com/servlet/catal...arget=bro wse
Anyone have this kit? Is it a good starter kit?
Between Tivo and DVD's, I don't even have a VCR hooked up anymore so
I'd really like something with a DVD as opposed to VHS tape.

Any recommendations on this kit or any others would be appreciated.
I'd like to keep the cost to under $50, as well.
Thanks.

wrote:
Hello all. I've been a freshwater angler for some time now and am
ready
to try my hand at fly fishing. I live in North Georgia were there are
several trout streams and even a river within a 5-10 minute walk from
my house.
Anyways, this month I'll be headed to Bass Pro Shops to pick out
[snip]
Any recommendations on this kit or any others would be appreciated.
I'd like to keep the cost to under $50, as well.
Thanks.

I would suggest staying away from any fly tying kit, The materials are
often substandard. Grab a book like the Orvis Fly Tying guide,
something from AK Best, or you local fly shop and Bass Pro will have a
selection. There is a big volume tying book called the Fly Tyers
Benchside Reference that has a companion CD for the computer. It may or
may not be on DVD.

Go into the local shop, ask about a Thompson type vise, and the basic
tools like hackle pliers, hair stackers, bodkins, bobbins, and of
course something to cut with. Ask them to show you the difference
between necks and capes, and the grades. Ask them to show you the basic
supplies for tying a woolly bugger and other simple flies and purchase
those items to start.

I would also suggest staying away from the Bass Pro Shop and visit any
of the fine Georgia Fly Shops including the Fish Hawk, Occoee (did I
get that one right charlie?)Outfitters, the Hiwassee Outfitters, or
even the Bargain Barn in Jasper. But it's your money and your choice,
Bass pro will always be there but Atlanta's lost two shops in the past
5-6 years.

Thanks for the info. Between my wife and mother-in-law, I received a
good bit of $$$ in BassPro gift cards, so I'll need to buy my gear
there.
Just fyi - sadly, Bargain Barn burned down a few months ago.
I don't know if they're rebuilding or not.

wrote:
Hello all. I've been a freshwater angler for some time now and am
ready to try my hand at fly fishing. I live in North Georgia were
there are several trout streams and even a river within a 5-10 minute
walk from my house.
Anyways, this month I'll be headed to Bass Pro Shops to pick out fly
fishing gear but thought that in the meantime, I'd like to order a
beginners fly-tying kit, preferrably with an instructional DVD so I
can go ahead and learn the ropes of fly tying and have a few flies on
me before I get out on the water.
Something along these lines:

http://www.basspro.com/servlet/catal...arget=bro wse
Anyone have this kit? Is it a good starter kit?
Between Tivo and DVD's, I don't even have a VCR hooked up anymore so
I'd really like something with a DVD as opposed to VHS tape.

Any recommendations on this kit or any others would be appreciated.
I'd like to keep the cost to under $50, as well.

Did anyone else notice that kit includes material and video instruction
for the "Wooly Booger" pattern? I might buy the kit just to see what it
looks like, not to mention the recipe. :)
--
TL,
Tim
------------------------
http://css.sbcma.com/timj

wrote in

Anyways, this month I'll be headed to Bass Pro Shops to pick out fly
fishing gear but thought that in the meantime, I'd like to order a
beginners fly-tying kit, preferrably with an instructional DVD so I can
go ahead and learn the ropes of fly tying and have a few flies on me
before I get out on the water.

Everything I've read suggests that we should stay away from kits, as they
almost always contain small amounts poor quality materials.

I was looking at kits but decided to follow some advice and am very happy I
did.

What I ended up doing was making a list of materials from fly recipies and
taking it on down to Bass Pro Shops.

I asked one of the knowledgeable guys in the fly section to help me out and
got all the materials I needed to tie the flies I had selected. An added
bonus is that when I bought, say, pheasant tail I got a couple of nice long
feathers that have allowed me to tie a bunch of the same flies over and
over... (Practice makes perfect, or so they say... heh)

I'm still waiting for my book but I got started tying by following the
series on this website:

http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flyt...s/archive.html

There is also an intermediate and advanced tying section, so it should keep
me going for a while. Anyway, as I said, I made a list of all the materials
for all of the flies in the beginner's section and took it to Bass Pro. I
decided to stick with the 1st 4 patterns for a while, and so only needed a
few materials.... I'm still working with those same materials (plus a
zillion spools of thread and floss I bought as a lot on eBay) a few weeks
later. Here's what I've managed to tie up so far:

http://www3.sympatico.ca/daito/tying.htm

I just uploaded my "shopping list" if anyone is interested in following the
recipes on the flyanglersonline website above. You an grab it he

http://www3.sympatico.ca/daito/shoppinglist.doc

As for tools, there are as many suggestions out there as there are people. I
lucked in and bought an 'estate lot' from a gentleman whose father was a
tier. Anyway, the website, again, lists the tools one needs for the job. For
starters (and to tie the first four flies, anyway) all you need is a vice, a
good bobbin, some glue (head cement), a bodkin (needle), a whip-finisher
(unless you want to do it by hand, which is recommended), and a good pair of
pointy scissors. A hair stacker is nice but not necessary (yet), and the
hackle pliers are for a bit later.The rest of the fancy stuff can be picked
up on your soon-to-be-daily trips to all the fishing shoppes within driving
distance, but by all means if you need to spend a lot of cash, go nuts and
buy it all now :)

Anyway, that's my $0.02: From a beginner's point of view.

Cheers!

Gary

I've been tying for many decades now and can still remember how I learned to
tie my first few flies. I was a kid who grew up in a household where fly
fishing was THE sport. My father and a friend of his, Lloyd Sylvius
(Sylvius Tackle Shop at Harris and Union Streets in Eureka, CA...which has
been out of business for a number of decades now) taught me....one fly at a
time. I was given a Thompson vise and related gear by my dad...and some
hooks and feathers from Lloyd...and tied my first fly...a wooly worm. I was
in grade school at the time. After that, as I began to fish and use a
variety of patterns on local waters, I learned to tie the fly that I needed
at the time. I learned one fly at a time...and purchased only that which
was needed to tie that one fly. Over time, I learned a variety of
techniques and gathered only those materials that I really used. What I've
seen in most "kits" is a large quantity of junk with very little in the way
of materials that you would use regularly. Taking a fly tying class at a
local college or university...or one of the classes sponsored and/or taught
by many of the fly shop or fly fishing clubs is also a good idea. In
teaching others, I have usually insisted that they tie one fly very well
before proceeding to another pattern.

As an aside...I still have many flies tied by C. Jim Prey...who also fished
with my dad at one time although I was too young at the time to remember it.
Jim Prey tied some of the first optic flies on the Northcoast and tied them
sans vise. They were a bit crude by today's standards...but they caught
fish. By way of saying, there are flies tied to catch the eye of those who
purchase flies based upon how they look as opposed to how well they catch
fish.

Barry


wrote in message
ups.com...
Hello all. I've been a freshwater angler for some time now and am ready
to try my hand at fly fishing. I live in North Georgia were there are
several trout streams and even a river within a 5-10 minute walk from
my house.
Anyways, this month I'll be headed to Bass Pro Shops to pick out fly
fishing gear but thought that in the meantime, I'd like to order a
beginners fly-tying kit, preferrably with an instructional DVD so I can
go ahead and learn the ropes of fly tying and have a few flies on me
before I get out on the water.
Something along these lines:
http://www.basspro.com/servlet/catal...arget=bro wse
Anyone have this kit? Is it a good starter kit?
Between Tivo and DVD's, I don't even have a VCR hooked up anymore so
I'd really like something with a DVD as opposed to VHS tape.

Any recommendations on this kit or any others would be appreciated.
I'd like to keep the cost to under $50, as well.
Thanks.

If you do a google earch for the fly you are wanting to tie, you will
undoubtably find all the information that you will need. There aer quite a
few sites that give you step by step instructions.
I now have 3 or 4 loose leaf notebooks full of patterns that I downloaded
from the internet.


"

jackk wrote:
If you do a google earch for the fly you are wanting to tie, you will
undoubtably find all the information that you will need.

Google is an unbelievably valuable enterprise. They basically own the
Internet, or are very close to it. They could be a trillion dollar
company in 10 years.

Disclaimer: I own no Google stock, but that might change soon.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

Thanks guys. Very good advice and I will indeed heed it...except I did
have a moment of weakness last night. I stopped into Walmart to return
a piece of junk I had bought there (stay away from their $10 coin
counter). As long as I was there I figured I'd check out the fishing
section. There were many items on clearance - some seemed like good
deals, others did not. I ran across a fly-tying kit with an
instructional video, bobbin, bobbin threader, bodkin, hackle pliers and
scissors, etc. It was marked $30, down from $49.17 but I ran it across
one of their little price scanners and it came out as $20. I couldn't
resist.
It's this guy right he
http://www.troutlet.com/scripts/prod...?idProduct=429
Anyways, I'll take your advice and learn the craft and buy quality
materials as needed but I just couldn't resist that one.
Thanks.

It's this guy right he
http://www.troutlet.com/scripts/prod...?idProduct=429
Anyways, I'll take your advice and learn the craft and buy quality
materials as needed but I just couldn't resist that one.
Thanks.

Sorry to tell you this, but you will be replacing everything in that kit
within weeks. Oh, yeah, you'll still have that tucked in the back of
your fly tying junk bin, but you'll deny you ever bought it. You'll say
something like "well, a friend of mine heard I was into tying flies and
they got it for me as a gift."
By the way, read this:
http://www.flyanglersonline.com/ligh...e/part320.html
Welcome to the dark side.
--
Frank Reid
Euthanize to reply

Over the weekend, I attended a fly-tying class.
I was very happy with the class itself but at $65 for 4 hours, it
would've been nice to have something more to take home than the flies
that I and the instructor had tied.
I would've liked a companion booklet on how to tie the flies that I had
just been taught. It's a lot to take in for a beginner. Fortunately,
there are plenty of websites with step-by-step instructions.
Incidentally, the next day I tried out my new skills on the
aforementioned beginner's kit and, while the components weren't of the
highest quality, I tied some pretty decent flies out of it.

I live in NW Pennsylvania, and we have a number of fly tying clubs
that offer free instruction; you don't even have to join the club.
Try a local Gander Mountain store and inquire if they have evening fly
tying sessions. One of our local stores sponsors a local club,
provides a tying room. You can observe, ask questions, tie a few
flies, bring in your own tying equipment, etc. - no cost to you. A
local Orvis store also has classes in the evenings this time of year.
Check it out.

Regards,

Dick

On 22 Feb 2005 14:30:26 -0800, wrote:

Over the weekend, I attended a fly-tying class.
I was very happy with the class itself but at $65 for 4 hours, it
would've been nice to have something more to take home than the flies
that I and the instructor had tied.
I would've liked a companion booklet on how to tie the flies that I had
just been taught. It's a lot to take in for a beginner. Fortunately,
there are plenty of websites with step-by-step instructions.
Incidentally, the next day I tried out my new skills on the
aforementioned beginner's kit and, while the components weren't of the
highest quality, I tied some pretty decent flies out of it.

T'aint nothin' like catchin' a fish on you own hand tied flies. Best
wishes to you! You might check out Ebay for kits, equipment, etc. But
be aware they are not always great deals or quality. However you can
occasionally find a gem (Like old Thompson vices, etc.).

wrote:
Over the weekend, I attended a fly-tying class.
I was very happy with the class itself but at $65 for 4 hours, it
would've been nice to have something more to take home than the flies
that I and the instructor had tied.
I would've liked a companion booklet on how to tie the flies that I had
just been taught. It's a lot to take in for a beginner. Fortunately,
there are plenty of websites with step-by-step instructions.
Incidentally, the next day I tried out my new skills on the
aforementioned beginner's kit and, while the components weren't of the
highest quality, I tied some pretty decent flies out of it.