Factory Direct

[mikemac1 0]

My support for local fly shops is routinely confirmed by my monthly credit card bills.  However, there are some advantages of going the “Factory Direct” route for fly tying materials if available.  Big fly tying brokers like Wapsi and Hareline lock up the supply of a lot of materials that otherwise are unavailable to the fly tyer.  Your only source for these are fly shops and online dealers.  Additionally, fly shops can’t possibly carry a supply of everything that’s available.  There are just too many variations, colors, sizes, etc. for the average material.  So when the factory direct alternative is available, it is sometimes your best choice.  Many times, the prices are 5-10%  less than what you’ll find in the fly shop because there’s no middle man.  Here’s a few of my favorites.

Azflyfishing.net - John Rohmer Materials. Great source of long strand dubbing.  Wide variety of colors And styles.  Although the brand is found in fly shops, the selection is generally less than 20% of the available varieties and color.

Hedron - The source for all things Flashabou.  Again, the variety,  color selection and price are tough to beat in the average fly shop.

River Road Creations  - This is a Montana local outfit that produces some great foam cutters and related foam materials.

Firehole Outdoors - A local Bozeman outfit that specializes in barbless hooks and various tungsten beads.  Never found a fly shop that had the complete line of their stuff in stock.

 

All of these folks sell online, directly from their websites and my experience with them has been great.  I am sure there are more “Factory Direct” opportunities out there, but these are my favorites.  I’d love to learn of more “Factory Direct” opportunities. When your local fly shop doesn’t have the size, color or variety of what you need, try “Factory Direct”.

[flytire 0]

fly tyers dungeon

https://www.flytyersdungeon.com/

aliexpress

https://www.aliexpress.com/premium/fly-tying-materials.html?d=y&origin=y&catId=0&initiative_id=AS_20200617073000&SearchText=fly tying materials

alibaba

https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product_en&CatId=&SearchText=fly+tying+materials

[DarrellP 0]

Man, I love Fly Tyers Dungeon.  Don't say FTD or your wife will think you are buying flowers for another woman.

[Pyme Fisher 0]

http://www.wholesaleflycompany.com/

https://www.flytyersdungeon.com/

I'm sorry, but the "Ali" companies mentioned above are both under the same corporation and based out of China. I am doing my best to avoid doing business with China right now, and keep my business right here in the US. Not always 100% possible, but when it's this open and obvious it's easy enough to avoid. 

[knotjoe 0]

2 hours ago, Pyme Fisher said:

I'm sorry, but the "Ali" companies mentioned above are both under the same corporation and based out of China. 

I'd bet a lot of the sourcing of flytying materials comes from China regardless of where we buy from.  Me?  I'm with you on the practice of buying a bit closer even if it means a bit higher price and a middleman.  The "Ali" thing is attractive in price, but their definition and descriptions of a given product just don't jive with my ideas of what they are.  Slotted beads are on example, their pic looks a lot like recessed round despite description.  No idea if they are really tungsten, doubt the person packing the order has a clue as to what any of it is either.

I could see being highly annoyed at what I receive versus what I ordered on these type of merchant sites.  Much prefer to buy from folks who may know what they are selling and advertise it accurately.  Don't mind a bit if the merchants (online fly shops) buy cheap in bulk from overseas and evaluate/sort correctly before bringing it to market, I'll pay for that.