How did you start tying flies? We all have a story . . .

[NohackleHS 0]

I began fly tying over 30 years ago. I was in a fly shop talking to a guy when he said to me "You mean you've been flyfishing 10 years and you don't tie your own flies!". This comment got me to thinking that maybe I should take it up. I took a fly tying course from a master fly tier (Andre Puyans) and I began taking it seriously from then on. My brother gave me a lot of fly tying materials to get me started and it was probably the best investment he's ever made. I've been tying all of the flies for both of us for the last 20 years.

[ihang10 0]

I needed a hobby and I don't have patience/detail/attention span for wood working. Since I don't know how to weld and don't have the space really needed for that, tying flies was next on the list. Here I am.

[Bimini15 0]

I bought my first fly fishing outfit from Hook and Hackle 15 years ago. Shortly after I became internet friends with the owner back then, Bob Ellsworth, who needed help with his website. So in having to look at the catalog constantly and after buying my first few flies (and losing them to mangroves, the tree, not the snapper) I realized that I probably should tie my own. I taught myself, but I got great advice from Bob and LOTS of materials that I will probably never use up. By then the web already had lots of info about local spots and that is how I found many of the patterns that worked for me. Good memories.

[skeet3t 0]

My son and I joined Trout Unlimited and found that tying flies was almost as much fun as catching trout on flies. We never tied more than a half dozen for our home waters. I still have the vice and have added some items in the past 23 years.

[Jokey 0]

Took up the flyrod when I was 11. Impressed my grandfather with my grayling catching enough that the next Christmas he got me a tying kit and whatever hooks and materials he could find up in Whitehorse at the time (which wasnt much). Quickly realized the kit was a complete POS but that tying was going to be something I was going to stick with. Never will forget the first fish I caught on one of my own flies.

 

J

[Rocco 0]

When I was a kid -- 60+ YA-- the local sports shop had a cabinet with revolving shelves that displayed Musky plugs, Dardeveles, Helen Flatfish, Heddon plugs etc.....One tray was reserved for "Killer Trout Flies" including Mickey Finns,bluegill poppers (sic),smallish mayflies, and a monster nighttime pattern called a "Michigan Caddis" tied with half a chicken's worth of feathers tied on a size 2 hook. I was mesmerized by them and used to rotate the shelves so that they would be displayed in the best light. The store owner chased me out several times but the hook was already set. I got a paper route, bought an elcheapo vise, and, from then on, no fur coat or feathered hat was safe from me.

 

Rocco

[deerhairdan 0]

Got over spending money for crap Kenya flies ordered on the internet. If you want something done right, do it yourself. Got a vise in 2014 and did just that. Now here I am.

[FlaFly 0]

I told this before... you weren't listening. Answer is I don't know. I bought a fly rod (Garcia) and reel (Pfleuger Medalist) back in 1958 at a sporting goods store in downtown Dallas. Don't have any idea why. I had fished cane pole and casting rig all my life. I don't recall ever seeing anyone fly fish before then... have no idea what possessed me. I must have also bought some popping bugs, because I soon after started tying cork body bugs. Got stationed in Florida in 1961 in the US Coast Guard. Stayed there after discharge and started again. Fly fishing was almost non-existent in Fla. back then as far as I could tell, but I found a tackle shop that sold packs of hackle and deer hair, humpback hooks, and cork bodies. Used an exacto knife handle stuck into a small woodworking vise as a fly vise. I didn't own a real vise until about 5 yrs. ago. Got some foam spider bodies and sili legs, and I was off again! Did a few Wooly Buggers. Found this forum and started trying other stuff. I still have some of my old poppers from back in the 60s. They aren't pretty but the caught lots of bluegills.

[DrLogik 0]

This from some memoirs I'm putting together....

I was 16 and I went to the library and took out every book I could find on fly fishing. None of them had anything on creating the fuzzy lures. I was intrigued; so I asked the librarian if they had any books on Fly Tying. She looked in the card catalog and found the book Tying American Trout Lures by Reuben Cross. The book was at another library she explained. I asked which one and she told me and I immediately ran out of the library, unchained my Stingray and set off for the Shaker Heights library. As I was checking the book out it dawned on me that I didn’t have any of the tools or things needed to make flies. Luckily I was going to take my drivers test in a week and I would then be able to venture out to Anglersmail in Parma a town just outside of Cleveland.

My drivers test in the snow went without a hitch in our behemoth 1972 Chevy Kingswood Wagon. I had even become quite accomplished at parallel parking that beast. I was 16 1/2 and now had the license in hand but no wheels. By that time I was working at the gas station across the street from my High School. I decided to buy my friend’s 1962 VW bug for a hundred bucks. It was complete with rust trim, 4 half fenders, half a steering wheel, no horn, no back seat, half a passenger seat and the drivers seat was bolted onto a plywood box that served as the floorboards that had long since rusted away from salt corrosion. And, yes, it started every time no matter the weather! I decided to set off for Anglersmail. They had everything. I mean, everything. It was like going to a fly tying candy store. One of the men who worked there set me up with a Thompson vice, hackle pliers with the rubber nubbies, silk thread and an assortment of fur, feathers, tinsel and chenille.

That night I set up my fly tying desk in the attic and began to tie Catskill flies from Reuben Cross’s book. I tied consistently for another 2 years and then took a 12 year hiatus beginning with our move to Charleston, South Carolina. I picked tying up again somewhere in my early thirties only to discover that bugs had robbed me of a lot of hard earned money. The only things that the bugs didn’t eat were my tools.

[mikechell 0]

Late 70's ... got tired of buying flies. Started tying my own with a kit from ... can't even remember.

Off and on through the decades, still have some of the original material from the kit I started with.

Most tying material comes from discount stores and yard sales.

Just recently bought a new Odyssey Vise, so now I am over $350.00 in tying tools and flies.

What's that ... something like $10 a year or less? Yeah, I have saved money tying my own flies.

[Decisions 0]

I'm 50 yrs old. I just quit smoking January 15, 2016. I was looking for something to occupy my time/ relaxing.

 

I will let you know when I find something relaxing.... (jk).

[zip 0]

I'm 50 yrs old. I just quit smoking January 15, 2016. I was looking for something to occupy my time/ relaxing.

 

I will let you know when I find something relaxing.... (jk).

Good for you,Sir!!!I've been trying for quite a while and it is not easy!!!

[RazzaMaChaz 0]

I started tying about 50 years ago. I was in the 8th grade. A few years before, my Dad had bought a fairly complete tying kit for Herters and tied for a while until failing eyesight (macular degeneration) made him give up. The kit collected dust for a while until one day I got into the box and started tying.

 

I used the book Fishing Flies and Fly Tying by Wm. F. Blades as my primer. Dad bought it somewhere.

 

I found I really enjoyed tying. In fact, even though I was tying decent flies, I wouldn't try fishing them for a couple years. Just the same, I was hooked.

[Poopdeck 0]

Started tying bucktails 30 or so years ago because I'm cheap and wanted to save money. When my father passed away I inherited his fly fishing tying stuff. He tied for flies for trout now I tie flies for everything because I'm still cheap and like to save money.

[Dave G. 0]

 

I'm 50 yrs old. I just quit smoking January 15, 2016. I was looking for something to occupy my time/ relaxing.

 

I will let you know when I find something relaxing.... (jk).

Good for you,Sir!!!I've been trying for quite a while and it is not easy!!!

 

This is how quitting smoking worked for me, it's how I did it and if someone thinks they don't have the will power then they won't quit. You're already defeating yourself. I only rationalized one thing, the lit cigarette butt that was staining my fingers (and ruining my body) in my hand had control over me, instead of me having control over it. I twisted it, looked at it, watched the smoke That Paper and smoldering tobacco was out thinking me, that's pretty dumb on my part !!! I did not say tomorrow I will do something about this, instead I took that lit butt, crushed it, took the brand new pack of Marlborough's and crushed it. Threw them in the trash and that was that. The first week I felt anxious and dizzy without them and then it began to subside and for about 2 years I desired a cigarette after meals, to which I answered "no you aren't in control, I am" and went about my business. Cigarettes are Satans tool, so is alcohol or any other substance or activity that gains control of you that is harmful to your well being . Anyway, that was 1973.

 

I never drank a lot, but two glasses is enough with today's high octane beverages to alter your thinking ( wine in biblical days was about 4% alcohol and then they cut it with water, in fact some deluted it to the point that it would take 22 glasses of the stuff to equal two today, so the argument that they drank wine in the bible doesn't fly very far and then they were instructed not take it full strength), to change the evenings path of productivity to something else etc. To slightly numb your clarity, to drop inhibitions etc.. Bibically it doesn't belong in our bodies at todays production levels, physically our bodies first reject it then crave it. For years I denied that and when I realized that, yes it's true, I quit. After I was diagnosed with wheat allergy, I became more and more aware of other things that poison our bodies or at least mine. I quit alcohol the same way I did cigarettes, though rather than toss the wine we had, my wife cooked with it, which of course boils off the alcohol content..

 

Cigarettes, alcohol, weed, cocaine etc. One substance is absolutely no better than the next, humans just rationalize it as such, forming justification of one over another, sometimes by legality or sometimes by research reports. Don't fool yourself, David,is my thought pattern for myself. What the acceptance is is a double standard.