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Brodrash

good patterns to practice

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I've just started teaching myself to tie and I'm looking for beginner patterns so I can practice and hopefully get the fundamentals down. My main target species is bass and panfish, but I do fish for trout in the cooler months. Anybody have anything I should try?

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Everyone will agree with me on this: do a Wooly Bugger. The most all-purpose fly for panfish especially, but I hear that trout like them too.

 

Go to http://www.flyanglersonline.com and scroll down to the fly tying section. Select the beginner portion. There is an initial link to a good description of tools and materials, then a series of step-by-step instructions for selected flies that are not only good for developing technique, but also good for catching fish. The wooly bugger is the very first one in the list.

 

Follow the steps carefully. If you aren't satisfied at any point that you haven't matched the drawing, don't keep going... stop and unwind, and try again. The idea is to get it done right, not fast.

 

Good luck.

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+1 on the bugger. Not only will it catch all of the species that you fish for, it's a great fly for beginners to cut their teeth on. It incorporates a number of basic techniques that you'll need to master in order to tie other patterns, and, since they work in a wide range of sizes, you can tie your first buggers on nice big hooks (#6 is a good place to start), and then work your way down to smaller sizes as your skills improve. That way you don't get too frustrated right at the outset of your tying career. :) Best of all, it's a relatively cheap fly to tie. Marabou, strung saddle hackle, chenille or yarn from your local craft store, and a spool of 6/0 black thread. Since you're just starting out, I'd recommend getting a package of cheap hooks from your local bait-and-tackle, or the tackle section of your local big-box to practice on (or just keep tying on them if you like -- they're cheap and they work fine).

 

If you're just learning, I'd also recommend a good instructional book aimed specifically at beginning fly tiers, too (if you don't already have one). The one I learned from is called Fly Tying Made Clear & Simple by Skip Morris, and I liked it a lot, but there are several other very good ones out there.

 

One way to learn faster is to post up some pics of your finished flies on here and ask for critique--you'll get a lot of helpful feedback from folks on here. :)

 

Good luck and have fun tying.

 

Bryon

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As much as I hate the Trump-esque, "Everyone agrees with me" presumption, I won't be the one to break ranks on this one.

 

The bugger is a great pattern, both in the vise and on the water...several different materials and techniques, each of them easy to learn but taking a bit of effort to truly master, with plenty of room for customization, slight improvements, and no especially temperamental materials or fussy techniques required. They work in a huge range of sizes (I've personally taken fish on buggers from #2-18), colors (from dark to light, dull to neon), weights (spare & unweighted to dumbells 2 layers of lead wire), and any variety of optional touches (flash, cones/beads, rattles, rubber legs, collar hackle, 2-tone coloration, material tweaks, various types of hackle, etc.) Everything seems to work.

 

An attractive feature for the beginner is that they don't have to be perfect, or even near perfect, to function well and catch fish. You can do a lot of small things in your process to help make a much neater fly, but the ratty first attempt will often fish as well or better than the tight, ideal-proportion, tiny head tie.

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Alright looks like the bugger it is. I'm at work now. When I get home ill tie one and post it for some constructive criticism.

 

Oh and Bryon as far as the book goes, every time I go to buy one I cant bring myself to spend money on that when I can get materials. I might just have to suck it up and get a book haha

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If it'll help, here's my method for buggers:

 

1. Hook in vise

2. Lead wire (optional) on middle 2/3 of hook shank

3. Thread base (taper at both ends of lead, if applicable)

4. Marabou tail: 2/3 shank length long, using a single "blood quill" plume...sometimes wetting the feather helps, and some guys like to snip the end of the center stem out of their feather...I typically dont. Bind down the butt of the feather up along the thread base to about 2/3 of the way up the shank, trim off at a very gradual taper (blending with the from thread taper if you added lead). Return thread to the bend, where you tied in the marabou.

5. Tie in a hackle at the bend, by the tip. Prepare it by pulling all of the fibers back "against the grain" for the whole feather, except a tiny bit at the tip, so that the un-brushed portion at the tip is about 1" long or 1/2 shank length, whichever is less. Tie it in directly over top your marabou tie-in point, and bind down the un-brushed feather tip across the shank.

6. Tie in chenille. Choose a thin enough chenille for your fly, trim a length, and using a firm pinch, pull the fibers from the end of the thread core. Once you have 1/4" of exposed thread core, tie it in by this portion at the bend.

7. Advance thread to 1 eye width behind the back of the hook eye.

8. Wrap the chenille forward in touching turns. Tie off at the point you stopped your thread.

9. Wrap the hackle forward, keeping the feather stem in the space between the wraps of chenille. This protects the (comparatively) fragile hackle stem from fish teeth. When you get to the front of the chenille, make 2 or 3 wraps of hackle at the front of the fly, just behind the eye. Tie off and trim.

10. Whip finish and trim thread.

 

No need for counter wrapping, wire reinforcement ribs, or anything else, and keeping the hackle between the chenille wraps will help those fibers stick out as well!

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9. Wrap the hackle forward, keeping the feather stem in the space between the wraps of chenille. This protects the (comparatively) fragile hackle stem from fish teeth. When you get to the front of the chenille, make 2 or 3 wraps of CHENILLE at the front of the fly, just behind the eye. Tie off and trim.

 

CHENILLE is a typo, im assuming. I personally do a few wraps of HACKLE in front of the chenille.

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Brodrash, I can understand your preference for spending your money on materials and it may be that you are one of those who prefer to "learn by doing" rather than learning from a book or another person. That's fine, I have nothing but respect for the self-taught (I consider myself self-taught, even though I used a book to teach myself). I will say that having a good beginner's manual by your side will help shorten the learning curve when it comes to techniques, it will save you some time and keep you from teaching yourself bad habits that you'll probably need to un-learn and re-learn the correct way in the future. Probably, I said. :) . It is, in the end, though, each to his or her preference. The main thing is that you're learning and enjoying the process.

I'm anxious to see some of your flies!

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The very first thing you should practice is thread midge larvae. These will teach you several very important thread techniques. Since almost every fly you will tie uses thread, I feel its important to learn proper thread placement and control first. Even better, these patterns will catch fish. Larger sizes can imitate pond dwelling midges and smaller sizes will imitate the cold water midges found in most trout streams. Once you learn how to handle the thread, then move on to adding a rib, and some indication of a wing bud.

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UT... Remember he's mostly after bass and panfish. Would you recommend midges as a first try for bass?

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9. Wrap the hackle forward, keeping the feather stem in the space between the wraps of chenille. This protects the (comparatively) fragile hackle stem from fish teeth. When you get to the front of the chenille, make 2 or 3 wraps of CHENILLE at the front of the fly, just behind the eye. Tie off and trim.

CHENILLE is a typo, im assuming. I personally do a few wraps of HACKLE in front of the chenille.

 

Good call. Will edit,

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This is something I have said before and will say every time this comes up. Materials + Technique = Pattern. Lets take a simple pattern the Soldier Palmer. Tie in a red wool tail, a rib of silver wire and dub the body. Tie in the red game hackle wind down the hook secure with the rib. Add a second red game hackle at the head. Now if you change the hackles for a black one for the body and a blue or red one at the head you have a blue or red Zulu. The techniques are identical. Therefore the things to practice are techniques. Of course some materials are harder to apply the technique to, but it is still the same technique.

 

To do this be aware of how you do things. Be conscious of what each turn of thread gives you. If it doesn't give you anything why did you put it in? Your thread can be a tool as well as a materiel. Don't be afraid to take turns off as well as put them on, and not only when things go wrong. For example when I am demonstrating a tinsel body I will deliberately use a dozen turns of thread to tie in the tinsel. You can use any number you like so long as you count them (That is using the traditional counting method of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc., not as was demonstrated in one video here - 1 (2, 3, 4, 5 don't count these) 2 (6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 don't count these either) 3). Once you have wound the body both ways hold the tinsel under tension and count the wraps off. A couple of turns over the end secures the whole body. That is one example of what I mean by using the thread as a tool.

 

Being aware of what you are doing and means that every fly you tie is practice. After tying a fly you should be able to recap and list all the techniques you used.

Cheers,

C.

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Here it is, I should have had the chenille go all the way back to the tail, this was an obvious mistake, none the less I missed it. However for my third fly I think it is pretty decent, let me know what you guys think.

 

(ps. I tried to post a higher quality pic with my camera but it was two large of file, anybody know how to lower the quality a bit to make it a few less megs?)

post-59105-0-36149500-1463203040_thumb.jpg

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Good first effort. You picked up on the most obvious issue on your own. Tie in the chenille so it points backwards, the first wrap will cover your thread. I'd say take a few more turns of hackle at the front. I like a pretty bushy collar at the front of mine. As for resizing, you can link to the image from a photo hosting site like photobucket, or resize it using "paint", assuming you use windows.

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