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Fly Tying
Greg Stine

Fly tiers in the United States

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What's the ratio of right hand tyers to left handed tyers?

 

How many tyers wrap thread towards themselves vs away from themselves?

 

How many tyers tie on the kitchen table?

 

I'm left handed but tie as if I'm right handed (easier to follow tutorials.) So don't forget us freaks when you tally.

 

Brian "away, and my wife kicked me out of the kitchen"

 

 

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What's the ratio of right hand tyers to left handed tyers?

 

How many tyers wrap thread towards themselves vs away from themselves?

 

How many tyers tie on the kitchen table?

 

I'm left handed but tie as if I'm right handed (easier to follow tutorials.) So don't forget us freaks when you tally.

 

Same here, and it's fairly common from what I've observed. The ratio of people who tie left handed to those who tie right is going to be much smaller than the number of left handers vs right handers.

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I’m considering starting a business related to fly tying and l would like to have a ball park of the potential customers to make a sensible business plan.

 

Thanks again to all who responded.

Greg Stine

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Hey Greg - you may want to include fly tyers in Canada, Europe, and Japan. The total may be similar to US tyers. If you need really acurate estimates, you may want to consult with an industry specialist or, one of the biggest suppliers like Whiting Hackle, Keough, or Metz. Good luck with your business venture.

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Starting a business related to fly tying and sensible business plan are seldom seen in the same sentence.

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I did a simple survey of the membership of various fly tying groups on Facebook, and came up with a number exceeding 115,000.

 

If you add the member list from this group, you get another 60,000. I simply multiplied the number of pages and the number of entries on each page to get that. I did see a lot of duplicates, so there are fewer than 60,000 here. Also there are many people who are members on multiple groups, and of course nationality isn't given. I know there are dozens of other forums similar to this one, I have membership in several.

 

A total of 200,000 would not be an unreasonable number to start with.

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on this forum website there are 2999 pages of members x 20 names per page = 59,980

 

you have to subtract the number of names that registered and never posted

 

516 pages x 20 names per page = 10,320

59980 - 10320 = 49660 members with at least 1 post

 

then you have to figure out how many are no longer active, dead or just dont tie flies any more

 

how many names registered for the fly fishing forums only vs how many registered for the fly tying forum only

 

there are fly fisherman who tie flies and others who dont

 

there are fly tyers who dont fly fish and others who do

 

way too many variables

 

 

at the end of the day its just a wild ass guess as to how many fly tyers in the usa

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In answer to an earlier question: I am left handed, and tie with my vise facing to my left. I also wrap my thread over and away from me, which is counter clockwise. That happens to be the same direction many right handed tiers wrap thread. I had never seen anyone else tie, and in my early reference books, I didn't see any information on which way the thread should be wrapped. During a clinic with Jack Dennis, he noticed me tying left handed, and was surprised when he examined some of my flies they looked just like they had been tied by a right hand tier.

 

The IFTD (international fly tackle dealers,) association may have some figures that you might share with you. Never have tried to contact them.

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