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