Beginner Fly Tying Kit

[MT Flyfisher]

Does anyone have any advice on a good beginner fly tying kit? Looking for the basic tools and some material. I would like to keep the cost below $200. Thanks

[Philster]

Does anyone have any advice on a good beginner fly tying kit? Looking for the basic tools and some material. I would like to keep the cost below $200. Thanks

Danvise will keep you well under $100 and give you a kick butt vise. I knew commercial tiers who used them. Keep it simple. 1 decent pair of scissors, 1 decent bobin, 1 bodkin (believe it or not, it's very important!). Learn to do the hitch without a tool. All you really need at first. Some would say ever...

[Daryle Holmstrom]

What he said.:thumb:

iagree

Daryle

[chadk]

look on craigslist and ebay for people selling their fly tying supplies. Often you'll find materials, tools, supplies that would cost you hundreds of dollars and years to aquire - for great prices...

[PhlyPhisher]

I bought a kit to get started. I don't recommend it. You'd be better off taking the money you spent and putting it into buying stuff at garage sales, flea markets, e-bay etc.. You'll get a much bigger bang for your buck. The feathers and other materials you get in a kit tend to be real low quality.
Ask for advise as to the basic tools you must have to get started. I have my opinion, everybody else has theirs. Decide what type of fishing or fish you're going after. Then buy some hooks and other materials that will allow you to tie the flies that experienced people recommend. Ask for advise at your local fly shop. Start with easy flies like Woolly Buggers, Marabou Leaches, Elk Hair/October Caddis etc... I still have some of the materials that came in the original "kit" that I started with. The only thing the materials is good for is practicing tying flies with, but the quality of the flies won't be very high.
Tying your own flies is a blast, only topped by catching fish on flies that you created/tied yourself.
Good Luck!:thumb::beer2:

[MT Flyfisher]

Thanks for the tips :), looks like I'll have to do a little shopping around. Any suggestions on good tying books or dvd's?

[miyawaki]

Does anyone have any advice on a good beginner fly tying kit? Looking for the basic tools and some material. I would like to keep the cost below $200. Thanks


Here at Orvis, we have three tying kits priced under $200. The Clearwater Kit at $98.; the Orvis kit at $149; and the Saltwater kit for $169. All come with books, tools, feathers and fuzz.

Leland.

[SteelieD]

Get good scissors!!!

[Philster]

Kits bad... Mongo no like. Never have good quality animal parts. Mongo Mommy say parts is parts, but bad parts slow down mongo. Make Mongo tie bad flies, lots of waste... Sometimes Mongo fingers turn color from cheap marabou. Mongo like Mongo colored fingers! Stems on cheap marabou thicker than Mongo's bad thingie! Make Mongo cry and go to dark place. Tools not always bad. Materials ALWAYS bad...

[MtnWkr]

Lets just go buy some supplies tomorrow.. I'll help you piece together a good kit.

[MT Flyfisher]

Sounds good MtnWkr. Thanks for all the advise guys:beer2:

[FT]

The best lower priced fly tying tool kit on the market is Griffin's 2A Tying Tool Kit. It has a very good vise (the model 2A), very good Griffin scissors, a bodkin, a good whip finisher, good quality Griffin Bobbin. a good quality Griffin hackle plier, and a hair stacker. The part is all of this is packaged in a box for under $100.00. Since Griffin is manufactured in Montana, it should be very easy for you to find on of these tying tool kits. The Orvis kits that Leland mentioned are good, in fact, they are the only ones I say that about.

As far as materials, I've been saying this for many years and have said it here on this forum before several times, the best thing to do is buy the hooks, hackle, body materials, etc. for one or at most two flies that are both easy to tie (think Woolly Bugger, Grey Hackle, Brown Hackle, Hare's Ear Nymph, body less marabou streamer) and that are effective for the fish you are going to target.

Then as your tying skills increase, add to your materials and hooks the materials to tie another fly by doing nothing more than adding a single material. For instance, you get the 3xl or 4xl hooks, black marabou, black chenile, and black hackle to tie a Black Woolly Bugger. You can by getting some florescent yarn, make the Woolly Bugger into an Egg-Sucking Leech by simply tying the fl. yarn at the front of the body. You can follow this with buying grizzly hackle and you can tie Woolly Worms, etc. Another example, you get the #12-#14 standard shank hooks, grizzly hackle, yellow yarn and red yarn to tie a Grey Hackle, Yellow. By changing the tail to grizzly hackle and making the body out of grey dubbing, you have a very effective Grizzly Spider. Add grizzly hackle tip wings to it, and you now have an Adams.

By getting your materials this way, you will never buy things that you don't need and you will be able to add materials to tie different flies in a way that doesn't require huge cash outlays at one time. And after a year or two, you will have a rather large amount of usuable fly tying material that will tie flies which are effective for the area you live and the fish you are fishing for.

[PhlyPhisher]

The best lower priced fly tying tool kit on the market is Griffin's 2A Tying Tool Kit. It has a very good vise (the model 2A), very good Griffin scissors, a bodkin, a good whip finisher, good quality Griffin Bobbin. a good quality Griffin hackle plier, and a hair stacker. The part is all of this is packaged in a box for under $100.00. Since Griffin is manufactured in Montana, it should be very easy for you to find on of these tying tool kits. The Orvis kits that Leland mentioned are good, in fact, they are the only ones I say that about.

As far as materials, I've been saying this for many years and have said it here on this forum before several times, the best thing to do is buy the hooks, hackle, body materials, etc. for one or at most two flies that are both easy to tie (think Woolly Bugger, Grey Hackle, Brown Hackle, Hare's Ear Nymph, body less marabou streamer) and that are effective for the fish you are going to target.

Then as your tying skills increase, add to your materials and hooks the materials to tie another fly by doing nothing more than adding a single material. For instance, you get the 3xl or 4xl hooks, black marabou, black chenile, and black hackle to tie a Black Woolly Bugger. You can by getting some florescent yarn, make the Woolly Bugger into an Egg-Sucking Leech by simply tying the fl. yarn at the front of the body. You can follow this with buying grizzly hackle and you can tie Woolly Worms, etc. Another example, you get the #12-#14 standard shank hooks, grizzly hackle, yellow yarn and red yarn to tie a Grey Hackle, Yellow. By changing the tail to grizzly hackle and making the body out of grey dubbing, you have a very effective Grizzly Spider. Add grizzly hackle tip wings to it, and you now have an Adams.

By getting your materials this way, you will never buy things that you don't need and you will be able to add materials to tie different flies in a way that doesn't require huge cash outlays at one time. And after a year or two, you will have a rather large amount of usuable fly tying material that will tie flies which are effective for the area you live and the fish you are fishing for.

iagree Very good advice!!! Everyone I've ever met that has been tying flies for any amount of time at all, will tell you that they've accumulated more material than they really need or will ever use. (Including myself.) I'm always asking myself. "Do I really need this niffty new material or do I already have something similar that will work just as well.?" Most of the time the answer is "I've got some material that's similar". Then I go ahead and buy it anyways.:o

[Philster]

iagree Very good advice!!! Everyone I've ever met that has been tying flies for any amount of time at all, will tell you that they've accumulated more material than they really need or will ever use. (Including myself.) I'm always asking myself. "Do I really need this niffty new material or do I already have something similar that will work just as well.?" Most of the time the answer is "I've got some material that's similar". Then I go ahead and buy it anyways.:o

See, even when tying commercially, I always have a "use what works" philosophy. I remember when "turkey flats" started making the rounds in the commercial world (yes I am old and started young) for dry fly wings in place of calf tail. That was a "guides/commercial" solution to all the freakin turkey flats you have lying around when you deal with domesticated whole skins and dying up marabou and wings and stuffs. Lots of my local shops wouldn't accept it for the longest, and then a couple years down the road you started seeing it on pegs on the wall, and the next thing you know you overhear the shop girls saying "of course all our parachute adams are locally tied and we only use the finest material like white turkey flats for the wing posts":rofl: Filoplume? I used to collect that after other people got through tying with grouse and throwing that on the floor for caddis pupae legs. Use what you have. Orange is orange. pink is pink. Fake seal is fake seal. fine flash is fine flash. twisted flash is twisted flash. Brown thread is fine for subbing any color with the word "burnt" in the title...

The only thing you can't cheat on is length. You can sometimes cheat on shortening some things up and still maintain good flow and fishability, but even that eats alot of time, and time truly is money.

For example in fishing flies, you can substitute yak in alot of places where more exotic hair is required to get a good 3 to 5 inch length on a wing, but in commercial tying you can't. Folks want a little teeny head when they pay for a fly, and yak generally won't give you that. You gotta spend the coin. Other than that, dig through your crap and tie man tie!