Hooks are easy, get good ones, not the cheapest ones. Any fly shop will have both good hooks and cheaper ones, so just go to your local shop and get the size and type of hooks you need for 2 to 4 flies that are easy to tie and effective fish getters.
Materials are equally easy. Just get the materials needed to tie the 2-4 east-to-tie flies you are going to tie.
Flies like a WOOLLY BUGGER, HARE'S EAR NYMPH, GREY HACKLE, BROWN HACKLE will get you started, and they are all among the easiest to tie flies.
A #4, #6, or #8 3xl or 4xl hook, some black marabou, black chenile, black strung saddle hackle (or a bugger patch or a saltwater/bass saddle dyed black-the strung saddle is cheapest) is all you need for a WOOLLY BUGGER. If you want to dress it up a bit, get some pearl Kystal Flash in order to add a few strands (like in 4 or 5) to the marabou tail). Plus, it becomes an EGG SUCKING LEECH with the simple addition of a florescent chenile head.
HARE'S EAR NYMPH requires a #12-16 standard shank, 1xl, or 2xl hook, a package of hare's ear dubbing, and a spool of fine oval gold tinsel. If you want to add to your color palette of nymphs, just get some different colors of Hareline Dubbing's Hare's Ear dubbing and you can cover most mayfly nymphs. Add some hen hackle in brown, grey, black, or grizzly (barred black and white feather) and use some fibers of it for a tail and wrap some as hackle at the front of the body and you have just expanded your ability to imitate nymphs.
The GREY HACKLE only requires #8-#20 hook in standard shank wet fly hook (it can also be tied as a dry with the use of dry fly hackle for tail and hackle) or 1xl a bit of red yarn for the tail (any yarn works), yellow chenile for the body, and soft grizzly hackle (hen neck works great for the hackle). Change to tail to any feather fibers you wish and the body to any color and you now have a plethora of imitative flies and attractors that are all proven fish getters. Change the body to peacock herl or to dubbing instead of chenile and you have expanded your ability to match the naturals by a huge amount.
The BROWN HACKLE requires the same hooks as the GREY HACKLE, tail can be red yarn or any brownish feather fibers, body is peacock herl or any darker or variegated chenile, hackle is brown (hen neck is great). Use dry fly hackle for tail and hackle, use dubbing for the body, and you have a good dry fly for brownish naturals. Change the hackle and tail to ginger, and use a ligher color dubbing and you can imitate light colored naturals.
Use the black marabou tied as a wing on a nickle-plated (silver) or stainless steel long-shank hook without a body (this is why a silver hook is used, it takes the place of the body), and you have a very effective baitfish imitation. Change to olive marabou, brown marabou, white marabou and you can imitate a rather large number of baitfish. Use a darker marabou over a lighter one i.e. black over white or brown over yellow or brown over light olive, etc. and you have just expanded what baitfish you can imitate. Use bright, florescent marabou, black, or purple (or a combination of them) and you now have very effective winter steelhead flies.
Notice, all this variation is possible with tying simple, easy-to-tie flies and simply adding materials and hooks as the need arises. Plus, all the materials are inexpensive.
You don't need floss, tinsel (except for some fine oval gold), exotic feathers, Hoffmann dry fly saddles, etc. to tie any of these flies. You will need to get some 6/0, 7/0, 8/0, or 70 denier thread (brand doesn't really matter) thread in black, brown, and tan to tie them. Don't fall into the trap of thinking you need to use a thicker thread when starting to tie flies, you don't. Remember, heavy thread is used for things like spinning deer body hair or lashing heavy lead wire to monstrous hooks (as in 1/0 and larger) and is not needed to tie the fly or hold the material in place. The best tyers and virtually all experienced and intermediate tyers use the 6/0, 7/0, 8/0, or 70 denier thread to tie any fly (except for spinning deer body hair) regardless of size.
So as can be easily seen, getting material to start tying flies is really very easy and doesn't cost very much either.
I wrote an article that is in the article section of the site on materials and how to go about getting them that goes into much more depth than here. I highly recommend you read it for it will help you avoid many pitfalls and keep you from buying materials you don't need and probably won't use.
