How did you get started tying?

[Piker20 0]

Mine started in '97. Had been bait and lure fishing since around 1990 and was off traveling around region XI Chile. Wanted something lightweight and easy to carry so made a hand line with a Owner hook and tied on it what looked like a Mrs Simpson, although I didn't know that at the time. I dismantled

my grans hat to get the feathers. LOL.

The hook had a few turns of lead round it and flicked out well enough to catch some tigerfish. There were some HUGE trout in the salt but they didn't look twice. Managed to canoe round some remote parts of Laguna san Rafael (was voluntering on a scientific thing catching rare cats)and borrowed a light spinning rod and caught a few wonderful trout on that fly. Looked like rainbows but not sure what exact species they would be.

When I came back to UK I tied up pike flies and some dries to catch chub and carp and then by 2004 I'd pretty much given up bait fishing and now just use flies or lures. I'd love to get back to Chile with a proper kit and look for those fish again.

[nick2011 0]

i was about 21 when i first started tying flys, i saw some guy on tv tying a fly and thought it looked fun so i went and bought a few things and now here we are,im 34 now so its been a long time for me..its crazy how time just flies by.. i acually started tying flys way before i ever even tried to fly fish.tying flys is what brought me to fly fishing..now i love to catch fish on flys that i have tied there is almost no better feeling sometimes.

[Stippled Popper 0]

I took up fly fishing and joined my local club in 1999 at the age of 52. The previous year my wife and I visited our daughter and her husband

who were living for a year in Montana. Traveling through Yellowstone Park and seeing all of the people fly fishing reminded me of a few fishing

trips my father had taken me on in my youth and I needed an outside hobby to balance all my other inside hobbies. It quickly became apparent

to me that very few commercially available flies were used by club members and the only practical way to acquire these flies was to tie them

myself. It was slow going at first. . . about four years before I'd show anyone my ties.

[Jimr1961 0]

1974 when I was 13, I got my first kit from my uncle. A little piece of bent steel they called a vise and some other, things. I loved it and tied for about two years, but never learned to fly fish. The other day, my son (13) was looking at my fly box (I'm going to Tehipite Valley for a week to fly fish) and asked me if I would teach him how to tie flies and fly fish. So, I'm currently gearing up to get back into it. I just got a vise (A Renzetti Traveler 2200) and now in a hold pattern until I get the rest of the tools and enough material to tie many of the flies I want to bring with me to TV. I'm looking forward to getting back into a hobby from my youth.

[mrtyit 0]

I'm a late bloomer @ 45.

Last summer my daughter and her boyfriend wanted to go fishing so without our license we sneaked away to a little brook not far from home I remembered having my brothers fly rod from 20 years ago sitting in the basement with a hand full of fly and off we were. Not knowing what the heck I was doing I enjoyed it anyways. Did that for about 2 weeks straight then the heck with this I'm getting my license and trying this fly fishing publicly I was so hooked about 1 month of not seeing much of the wife she joined me and gave it a try. Our next trip was to a tackle shop and got her fully equipped so she could wake up @ 5am on the weekends too and we spent hours of fishing in the water and branches also Then the season finished before we were ready to accept defeat we began taking tying courses. We set up a tying desk in a spare room and all winter we aimed @ mastering our tying skills together. Now that a new fishing season has begun we get to try our new flies with and without success, but that's the name of the game isn't it.We are so hooked the only thing I hate about fishing season is it's shared with mowing the lawn season which cuts into my fishing time

[CurtisSteinhauer 0]

My Dad has been a gear guide on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington and in Alaska for 30+ years. I followed his footsteps when I was 15, eventually got tired of how repetitive and un artful conventional fishing was, bought a book called "The Color of Winter" about fly fishing for steelhead on the Olympic Peninsual and fell head over heels for fly fishing and the culture here, fly tying was the natural next step.

[Piker20 0]

.We are so hooked the only thing I hate about fishing season is it's shared with mowing the lawn season which cuts into my fishing time

 

Thats what concretes for :D . Better yet a garden pond filled with research fish.

[milo3 0]

As for me I had my kidneys fail in October of 2011, ending up in a nursing home and taking dialysis 3 times a week at 4 hours a day,being unable to walk I had to figure out what I could do to keep what little mind I had left. Thought about my Dad's old Union Hardware bamboo fly rod that I have, which gave me the idea of tying. Got on several forums , youtube,{the only place I've seen anyone tying ] and with some help of some very kind people I was up and running. I guess getting sick has it"s blessings, it introduced me to the wonderful world of fly tying.Also on the funny side, several weeks ago I ran out of hooks, {thought I was going into DT'S } so I had my 88 year old mother looking for bream hooks in my fishing gear ,{ she does not know a hook from third base } Anyway I consider tying as a blessing, and maybe one of these days I'll get to fish with a fly that I made ! Many thanks, milo3 P.S. the nurses here think I make ear-rings, as I tell them, they would be easy to put in but heck to take out !

[subailor618 0]

1987, Kittery Maine. I was 26 and I was stationed in Portsmouth New Hampshire for submarine overhaul and had gone spinner bait fishing for trout. Watched an older gentleman working his fly rod. We started talking a bit and he took the time to show me his equipment and even started teaching me to cast, mend and read the water. We talked about his fly box and he showed me a few and made the statement that the greatest thrill for him was took hook a trout on something he had just tied the day before.

 

I went into the Kittery Trading Post and bought their most deluxe fly tying kit they had. I have been addicted ever since and it still a thrill to catch a fish on something I have tied.

[lykos33 0]

 

 

BTW - the fly tying lessons did cut down on juvenile delinquency, but only for the two nights of the lessons. We were happy to learn a new skill and all that, but raising holy hell at every opportunity was just too entertaining to give up completely.

 

:lol: For some reason, I TOTALLY believe this!!! :lol:

[lykos33 0]

I grew up in Central Florida pretty much with some kind of rod in my hand from about 7 years old on. Like most cracker kids I started with a cane pole, giving the gills and lil bass all heck. I graduated slowly to Zebcos then to spinning reels , and eventually to bait casters. My buddies and I fished so much and so often that we even became proficient at casting a 6/0 Penn Boat Reel (Deep Sea Fishing Reel), which is not recommended... When I moved to Canada 7 years ago I had no idea my fishing would be curtailed to the extent it was...if I HAD known, I probably would have made her move to Florida instead... After a few years of hearing me gripe about my fishing lack, a friend brought me his kids old tying kit and said."This is what you do during the off season, so quit griping and start tying!" To which I replied, " Can I use these bugs on a spinning rod?". He just walked away mumbling something about "damn Americans"...(I hear that A LOT!). There were no instructions in the kit so thank God I found this site and a few others to nurse me along. I still miss my 365 day a year fishing, but I'm handling it much better now that I can tie. I still refuse to sit on the ice to catch a fish....Ice is for my tea...not to sit on and freeze my yayas off while the fish laugh at me..

Murray

[Oyster Dog 0]

My parents gave me a Worth fly tying kit for Christmas in 1975. It was awful, but it was enough to get me started! I still have the bobbin, but nothing else survived.

[Toirtis 0]

My parents gave me a Worth fly tying kit for Christmas in 1975. It was awful, but it was enough to get me started! I still have the bobbin, but nothing else survived.

 

Interesting...that is the identical kit that my father bought me, but my box was brand-stamped "Hook & Hackle" in the upper right corner...probably the distributor in Canada.

[DoctorD 0]

I was 14 yrs old in 1961 when I went away to summer camp (Horseshoe, Northern Wisc). I would see the camp founder, Doc H, fly fishing in the early morning around a weed patch in from of his cabin. I tool the fly fishing class there with Moose Cohen, tied several flys in the fly tying cabin and when fishing on a little Brookie stream. I've been hooked ever since. Still have that Phillipson glass rod and my first Medalist.

Lanning

[Jimboha! 0]

Jeepers, I started 6 months ago at the grand old age of 53. I don't feel quite like a spring chicken, but I like to backpack into hard-to-reach alpine lakes in Idaho where the big fish are hook-naive. Sure, worms and power bait work, but dries and terrestrials on the surface are so much more fun!

 

My grandfather fly fished and tied his own flies, but I could never imagine how a hook can float, nor could imagine all the bother. Last summer I tied a fly that I had found (with some leader) on my spin rod with a casting bubble (that I also found), and caught my first fish on fly: 16.5" cutthroat. Wow! I don't who was more fimly hooked - me or that trout!

 

About 6 months ago I was in a dept store and found a clearance shelf in the fishing section. There was a fly tying kit for 25% list price which I bought. Google, You Tube, some books, and this Forum provided me lots of useful info. I have since tied probably 400-500 flies, a little bit of everything from dries (Elk Hair Caddis and Stimulator are favorite dries), to soft-hackle wets, streamers, terrestrials, crawfish, scuds, and nummerous nymphs. Still learning how to fish them all - I like to be a generalist and not specialize in any one type. I understand those alpine lakes, but still have a tough time on rivers and streams.

 

I have since bought a lot of stuff on ebay, sorted through it to find the good tools and materials, and got rid of the rest, or surplus. As my wife points out, even at my current rate of tying, I have enough materials to tie at least for the next twenty years, quite possibly lifetime. Except maybe some of those specialty hooks.

 

Anyway, I can't imaging not tying - it is so relaxing to me. I tie something nearly every day. And, yes, I probably already have more flies than I can reasonably use before the body gives out on hiking! I'll just have to learn how to fish on our local Boise River.

 

Jimboha!