Getting Started

[LD]

Have been fishing for about a year and am thinking about tying.
Besides a vise what are the basic tools to start tying?

I will be tying trout flies, what basic materials do you need?
Thanks

[mozart]

Whip finish tool, bobbins, tons of thread (Black, gray, olive are the staples), find dubbing, head cement, hooks (12-18 for trout), hackle (grizzly, brown, dun, cream), nice sharp scissors, hair packer, bobbin threader, hackle pliers, and your creativity. The most expensive out of all of those is the hackle. At least $17.00 for a good quality hackle pack.

[FT]

The best thing you can do to learn how to tie flies is sign up for a fly tying class. This will get you off to a good start and help you avoid mistakes and the development of poor technique, not to mention it will greatly reduce the frustration you will experience.

As for tools, get a good vise because cheapo vises are false economy (do a search for beginning fly tying here on this site and you find quite a few good threads on the subject). Second get good scissors. I always recommend 2 bobbins (and the S&M bobbin which lists for around $6.00 is one of my favorites _own and use 16 of them-, but it is not always easy to find), but you can get by with one decent quality bobbin. A whip finisher (the best is Materelli at around $16.00, but there are good Materelli copies on the market for around $7.00). A bodkin (nothing more than a needle in a handle) which runs around $2.50 and you're in business.

To list them in an easy to read format:

Quality Vise
Good Scissors
Bobbin
Whip Finisher (Materelli type)
Bodkin

You might want to get a bobbin threader while your at it because it makes re-threading the bobbin a lot easier.

For materials, start with easy to tie flies that work for trout. Flies like the grey hackle, brown hackle, black & white wet, woolly bugger, woolly worm, hare's ear nymph, fox squirrel nymph, San Juan Worm, etc. are all good trout flies and easy to tie; thus, excellent to learn with.

I always recommend folks start with getting the materials for 2 at most 3 simply flies. This means the hooks, tail material, hackle, and body material for just those 2 or 3 flies. Don't worry about getting materials to tie 30 or 40 different flies at first. Also, you should tie at least a dozen of a fly before moving on to another one because this will help you learn quicker and let you see the improvement with each fly as you tie. Plus, by tying a dozen of a fly at a time, you will always have flies for you fly box that you can use.

As you master these first 2 or 3 flies, then pick up the material to tie another fly by simply adding the new material. For example, start with the grey hackle yellow, you get #12 hooks, a #3 grizzly hackle neck (you really don't need #1 hackle capes or expensive dry fly saddles. In fact, the vast majority of professional and commercial tyers buy #3 genetic hackle capes for 95% of their tying because they are the best buy on the market), some yellow yarn for the body, and red yarn or cheap hackle package for the tail. Then you add peacock herl to make the grey hackle peacock, so all you need buy is the peacock herl. Next you can add a #3 brown hackle neck which when used with the red tail and peacock body gives you a brown hackle.

Say one of the 2 or 3 flies you start with is a black woolly bugger. So you buy #6 3XL or #6 4XL hooks, black marabou, black chenile, and cheap black saddle hackle. To add to your flies, all you need do is add olive chenile for a body and you have the olive bodies woolly bugger. Then to make a woolly bugger into an egg sucking leech, simply add flame orange, cerise, or chartreuse chenile for the head. Get some other colors of chenile for the body and you can make woolly buggers in any color chenile you can find. And to make a woolly bugger into a woolly worm, put some flame orange or red yarn or hackle as a tail insead of using the marabou, and you have a woolly worm.

To add a dry fly to your tying, simply tie the brown hackle with a dark grey body and use brown hackle fibers for the tail and the brown hackle to hackle it. Change the tail and hackle to grizzly and you have another dry fly. Add a dun grey #3 hackle neck and you can tie a dry that works with Callibaetis. Add dubbing in a few colors and you can imitate about 90% of mayflies with these three hackle colors (grizzly, brown, dun grey).

Once you are very comfortable tying these simple flies, add wings of hair or rolled duck flank because they are easiest to tie. Save the duck quill wings for a while until you get some good technique developed.

This is how to add to you material collection without buying things you won't use and without spending a huge amount of money at any given time.

[LD]

Great advise. I did a search and there is alot of info already, should have searched first?
Thanks