Years tying flies

[flntknp17 0]

My first post on this forum......looks like a fun place!

 

I started tying in about 1987 so this is 30 years for me in 2017.

 

Matt

[Flat Rock native 0]

My first post on this forum......looks like a fun place!

 

I started tying in about 1987 so this is 30 years for me in 2017.

 

Matt

Welcome, Matt, post up fly and fish pictures when ready

[NohackleHS 0]

I tied my first fly when I was in the boy scouts (I'm 71 now) using a salmon egg hook, black thread and a black hackle (I don't remember where I got it). I actually caught a couple of four inch trout on it. I didn't really start fly tying seriously until the early 80's so I guess that means I've been tying almost 35 years.

[Bob Sc 0]

Been tying for 43 years. Got some feathers in a dye bath going right now. Started at 18 with lessons from the local fly club.

[Jaydub 0]

About 38 years. Time flies when tying flies.

[JSzymczyk 0]

37-38 years? Started when I was a kid, dressing treble hooks and tying bucktail jigs, for my dad and his fishing buddies who could no longer get the stuff locally which they wanted. It was only a short jump to flies and picking up his old glass rod (which was a classic Phillipson, but at the time we had no appreciation for it) and catching trout in the local streams, other stuff when it was slow, and carp when we were extremely bored. All my early learning was from books checked out of our town library. Over the years I've had the opportunity here and there to catch many kinds of fresh and saltwater fish on my flies, but I'm not a fly fishing purist. I use fly tying skills to make excellent hardware lures as well.

[JSzymczyk 0]

Even in the small number of replies so far, we have several centuries of combined experience here.... I think it's safe to say that when it comes to fly tying, SOMEONE on here has already seen it, done it, and forgotten about it. nothing is really new or revolutionary. The recent (last 10 years or so?) push on articulated streamers is a great example- growing up, one of my brother's favorite lures was a jointed floating Rapala minnow. I was messing around with "jointed" streamers and bucktail jigs, using 2 shanks to try to emulate that wiggle, soon after I started, so probably around 1980. I found them a bit of a pain to tie and didn't really catch any more fish with them than with standard flies, so they faded away. I was just a kid in a small town, and the idea seemed more troublesome than valuable so it didn't go anywhere. Now it's all the rage.

[wayne offord 0]

about 4 1/2 years

[Fisherboy0301 0]

It's been around 4 years next month. Started with a local 4h that held a tieing and fishing event. Got a bass pro kit from someone I hardly knew but who saw my interest in flies and fishing. Been a tying fool ever since.

[atxdiscgolfer 0]

4 yrs

[mikechell 0]

Off and on for ... a few decades. I honestly can't say how or when I started. My memory's always been less than perfect, and this is just one example. I remember trying it as a kid with an aluminum sheet metal vice that came in a kit ... but I don't remember how old I was at the time.

I also know that I don't tie flies. I wrap stuff around hooks and fish with it. Compared to some of the tiers on here, what I fish with can NOT be called "flies".

[Poopdeck 0]

Well I'm just about in my mid 50's and I started making my own fishing lures when I was a youngster because that's what my dad did. Ive been making freshwater jigs and tying hair on them for as long as I can remember. Carved fresh water lures, bended lots of wire and made my own Saltwater bucktails, teasers and dress hooks since I've started driving which really opened up the salt water fishing. Still have and still use a Thompson AA vice that I bought in the 70's as I never felt I needed an upgrade. Sometimes it's nice not knowing what you think you may be missing.

 

My father was pretty much a life long fly fishermen and fly tier. I never caught the fly fishing bug and he didn't care what I used when we went. He would tie tiny flies and I would tie giant things for spin fishing. Neither of us cared what the other was tying. This held true our entire lives together. My father passed away about five years ago and I ended up with all of his fly tying stuff including a crudely cobbled together portable tying desk. I had long ago made a beautiful mahagony portable desk since I also love woodworking. I ended up giving the mahagony desk to a friend and I use my dads hunk of crap, but it was his hunk of crap that I have many fond memories of and I just couldn't toss it. So any way, soon after he passed I went fishing with a fly rod and found the love of fly fishing that he had. So naturally I began tying flies the same day I started fly fishing. I still spin fish, saltwater fish and ice fish but I'm glad I added fly fishing and tying to the list.

[tidewaterfly 0]

50 years

[Bimini15 0]

That explains your 50 boxes

[Mike West 0]

Started tying at 8 years old (1st grade) went to the Long Beach Fly Casting Club, lessons once a week for 4 years and then developed from there... I'm about to be 58 this March.