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mattb

SW tyer/fisherman getting into FW tying and beyond confused

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Looking for some help regarding materials for freshwater tying. I've been salt water fly fishing for about 15 years now, and tying nearly the same length of time. I have enough salt materials to fill a studio apartment. I am starting to fish fresh a lot more and am trying to buy materials to tie, but my mind is going to explode trying to interpret everything I need.

 

Saltwater is stupidly simple in comparison, 99% of flies can be tied on a mustad 1 or 1/0 hook, tie some various sythetic materials and some epoxy, and you're done. Browsing on the allen site for hooks, and there is thin wire, 1xl this, 2x that, 3x the other thing, wide gape, down eye, sideways eye, etc etc.

 

Materials is a whole other ballgame. I'm going to get my dubbing from ftd, after that I don't even know what I need.

 

Is there some kind of master list that has a good explanation of what i'll need? Standard trout flies for the NE, dries, emergers and nymphs.

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I know what your experiencing. I went the other way. Cold freshwater flies to salt. I agree Saltwater patterns are a LOT simpler. You need some bait fish, shrimp, and crab imitations and you are ready to go.

 

Will you be fishing for cold water fish like trout, Salmon, Stealhead, smallmouth, pike, etc, or warm water fish like bass and bluegill?

 

There are many previous posts in the beginner section that may help with some basic material information.

 

This post should give you a good list to get started with

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The key to this and you will find that supported in the thread utyer linked you to, is not to try and buy everything you 'think" you need at once. Buy as you go is a much better approach and that way you don't end up with a whole bunch of materials you maybe use one time and never touch again ( I have a fair amount of those myself none the less, accidents happen, one time sparse hatches etc). As you learn your local waters you will find the types of baits the fish are on in various seasons and get the materials you need for those, some locations can totally fool you when you move beyond generic attractor patterns.. When I got into fresh water tying I started with Woolly Worms and Woolly Buggers , a full sink line on a spool and a floating line for my one six weight rod that I owned at the time and fished in local ponds. Very soon as the seasons changed and I had bought a few useless flies and tying materials ,I noticed, hmmm, these fish seem to be on those tiny mosquito looking things. And I went about tying those which turned out to be Chironamid Midges, an absolute Gold Mine of a fly on some still waters down here in the spring and again in the fall.Another location i fish in there are midges but you find out that really the fish in their concentrate on various bait fish way more and most notably baby herring in the fall. Over decades my materials list has grown to match hatches here where I live and for up in Maine, Norther NH, streams, rivers, ponds and also Lake trolling flies etc. But I caught fish that first year on those first flies as well.

 

So moral in the story: I would suggest to not/ don't go nuts buying a bunch of stuff you don't know if you need or not. Learn what you local fish are on and buy materials to make a few patterns of each of those things in various stages of life. Just a heads up !

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Since Trout and the NE were mentioned, peruse this site for patterns, recipes, hatch charts etc...

 

http://www.midhudsontu.com

 

I use it a lot to tie up patterns for my son who now lives in NYC and have become friends with a couple of tiers on their list...

 

 

PT/TB

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Depending where you live in the NE. Two types of flies I have in my box are caddis and midges. These have caught trout for me in PA, NY, VT and southern Ontario. You might miss a mayfly hatch but there always seem to be midges and caddis around. The only caddis pattern I have in my trout box is the CDC and Elk, though its creator told me it was all right to use deer hair which I do. Simple pattern, two materials, CDC for the body and deer hair for the wing. There are several easy midge patterns out there. For subsurface I use either a soft hackle PT nymph and a soft hackle Hare's Ear nymph. The Usual is a great generic pattern that can be used as either a caddis or mayfly pattern. Of course there's always the Green Weenie. And don't throw away your salt water flies. My silverside, bay anchovy and peanut bunker patterns do double duty, salt and freshwater. There are more fish than trout in the streams, rivers and lakes of the NE

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