Craft Stores Versus Fly Shops

[Dave Westburg]

Sometimes if pays to get creative when sourcing fly tying materials. I bought the badger neck on the left from a craft shop for $3.50. I bought the badger neck on the right from Hunters Angling supplies for $8.50. The markings on the craft shop neck are much more pronounced.

[Gabriel Burgi]

Was that supposed to be a photo? It didn't work.
I shopped a couple of big name fabric stores, JoAnne's and Michaels, and here is what I found:

- Peacock herl... $.99 at Joannes
- Copper Wire.... $10 for 6 spools, various colors (Actually at Wal-mart)
- Foam sheets.... $.99 at Joannes
- Beads.......... $?? Various prices and quantities at Micheals, but all cheaper than a fly shop.

The caveat:

None of their threads are waxed. The beads you get at a craft store won't necessarily fit a certain hook. Is their dye waterproof??

Nonetheless, it pays to shop around. I have never seen badger for sale at a craft store though. Wierd.

- Gabe:professor

[Dave Westburg]

I buy copper, red and blue wire at the bead shop my wife frequents.

Thanks for telling me you couldn't open the picture attachment. I've reattached the picture as a jpeg file. Hope this works Gabe.

[Kent Lufkin]

Yep. Try some of the specialty bead shops as well. There's one over in old Bellevue that has literally thousands of different sizes and colors of glass beads, all at a small fraction of the fly shop prices.

[Tim Cottage]

> The beads you get at
>a craft store won't necessarily fit a certain hook.

Just take some hooks with you into the bead or craft store to check the fit. They won't care.

TC

[Bogie]

After reading the other post I checked out a craft store near my house.Found peacock tails and herl,duck,goose feathers,biots,marabou and were sold out of chennile.The marabou was poor quality but the rest was ok.You could buy a 5 year supply of chennile for 1.50 when it is in stock.

[Flip]

ok ok, ill go to a craft store as soon as someone finds one with the small pearl-green tungsten beads i use on cronnies for cheep.. hmmm??

tom

[Dave Westburg]

You have to be inspect craft shop materials well. I wanted a well marked badger neck for tying atlantic salmon flies and Steelhead Sculpins. I was interested in vivid markings, not in dry fly quality.

Craft shop marabou doesn't always have the fine stems of fly shop marabou.

[JRSly]

I agree with brown on this one. Watch out for marabou that is purchased at a craft shop, not only is it often not fine stemed, but it bleeds a lot. It is also hard to find dry fly quality hackles at one, but for other things you can normaly save a bundle. The main problem that I have found in craft shops is that the color tends to fade more on stuff, the dye they use isn't always resistant to water. Just shop around, I have often gotten some great buys.

Sly

[wet line]

I am going to make this real simple. Support your local fly shop if they are reasonable people. So what if you pay a few pennies more as compared to a craft shop. If you are concerned about saving a nickel or dime per fly then you are into the wrong thing, unless you are a commercial tyer.
Your local shop needs all the buisness they can get to supply you with the high end quality goodies you want. Pay the little bit of extra freight for the small stuff and they will be around when you want that new Sage! Heck at the current price of gas how much stuff can you buy for the cost of gas from Seattle to Red's on the Yakima! SUPPORT your local fly shop! If you don't they will be gone and then you can go to Walmart!

Dave

[Dave Westburg]

Am all for supporting the local fly shop, but you can see from the picture that the badger neck I bought at the fly shop is inferior to the badger neck I bought at the craft shop. In this case the best material was at the craft shop.

[PeteM]

I'm all for supporting local fly shops but at the same time, I expect them to have reasonably competitive prices. When I can find peacock herl in a craft store that is as good as I can get at a fly shop for 1/2 or 1/4 the price, then the fly shops will lose my business for herl. It's not necessarily the actual cost but the principle. A prime example is the cost of beads in a fly shop. No one can tell me the manufacturing cost of those beads is anywhere close to the asking price for them in fly shops. All I ask is that the price for products in the fly shops we reasonably close to what I can find elsewhere (the prices doesn't have to be lower). I'll pay extra to support my local fly shops but I'm no fool.

Pete

[Kent Lufkin]

Since craft stores don't carry rods, reels, lines, hooks, or tying tools, I figure I'm doing a fine job of supporting my local fly shops. The few bucks I spend elsewhere aren't gonna make or break their business.

[troutaholic]

I'm all for supporting my local flyshop and I do by buying specialty materials from them, but when it comes to bulk items like foam and wool yarn its silly to pay 10 -15 times as much for the same thing. Mylar sheets you can get at the dollar store (or better yet, the 1/4 inch wide shredded mylar they use for decorative packaging)will last for years versus paying 3.50 for a little narrow spool of the same stuff.Sheets of winging material are really just krinkled mylar, again available at craft or dollar stores. Antron yarn is another example. I'd rather spend any extra money on hooks, leader materials etc. :-). I do occasionally use the brass and glass beads from bead shops for bodies but it's a real pain tying with them when they're used as a bead head because the holes on both sides are the same size and are often hard to get over the hook bend. Most of the time it's far easier to use the special beads from the fly shop. Also I agree with others you have to watch the dyes used in the feathers- especially in salt water, they'll sometimes leach colors everywhere! Just my 2cents worth :thumb

[andrew]

I agree fully in supporting the 'local' shop, however, I do tend to purchase materials elsewhere when substantially cheaper. I think it is ridiculous that shops charge a 'fin' for 25-50 glass beads...because they are a "specialty shop selling a specialty item"...well the bead shop on the other side of town is a smaller specialty business that will give you 1000 beads for the same price. I think it should be a responsibilty of the shop to keep customers/business...not solely the patron. It is they who talk to sales reps...who talk to corporate...who set the sale price.

Yes, it is a hobby, but it doesn't warrent paying more all of the time!

Andrew-who has walked out of a flyshop with a bill for 50 bucks, a bag with a few feathers/hooks/and a magazine.