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KarpsnKatz

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When I was a kid, I got a fly tying kit for Christmas one year. I liked the challenge of trying to tie flies, and started to not be half bad at it. Then I got into all things teenagers typically get into, and the hobby went by the wayside, and the kit wound up in the attic. A few years ago, my father retired and sold the house, so I had to go clean out the stuff I left behind.  I came across the kit and thought I'd keep and get back into it, until I opened the box and it smelled like death.  So into the trash it went. Lately, my wife has been asking for Christmas ideas, and I thought another kit would be a good suggestion. I checked some out on the usual online retailers, and noticed the ones for sale seemed to be cheap and spartan, or fairly expensive and a little over the top. Anyone have any suggestions, or opinions on a halfway decent kit? Tying flies seems like a good way to kill a boring winter.  Thanks in advance.

Edited by KarpsnKatz
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I would stay away from material kits. Most have poor quality material and you probably will not use much of it. Pick a pattern you want to tie, buy the materials for that pattern and tie that pattern. Pick another pattern and buy the material for that pattern. Soon enough you will have all the material you will ever need and not have any material you will never need. 
 

start out tying patterns you can realistically tie. Don’t jump right into artistic salmon flies. 

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2 hours ago, poopdeck said:

... Pick a pattern you want to tie, buy the materials for that pattern and tie that pattern. Pick another pattern and buy the material for that pattern... 

This is exactly what I did.  I started tying sabiki rigs with white feathers, tinsel and red nail polish on the threads.  A little ghetto, but they work great for catching mackerel. 

 

From there I bought a pair of hackle pliers and started tying what I call "black dot" mosquito flies for trout. Then I bought a hair stacker and started typing elk/deer hair caddis flies.  I'm still learning how to whip finish and the fish don't seem to mind bodkin half hitches.

 

Buy a pair of good scissors (I like Singer sewing scissors) and a couple of bobbins with flared and smooth cylinders for the thread to pass through. There's nothing more frustrating than to have the thread break mid tie from a cheap bobbin.

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How much are you looking to spend. A $20 vise can last a lifetime so can a $500 vise.  Thread in different sizes in a couple of basic colors.  A bodkin, bobbin preferably with a ceramic insert, whip finisher, hair stacker, scissors, hooks, head cement and you're in business.  You can get exotic or tie basic things that catch fish.  Pick the right jaws to tie the size hooks you want.  Sucks when a hook slides or the jaws are about to break the hook.  All you're doing is lashing materials onto the shank of your irons.

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The Bears Den fly shop has a link on their home page to a list of Best Gift Sets and Kits For Fly Tyers. Some interesting options if you want to direct the better half to a prepacked kit. The Hareline and Wapsi kits should have good materials as they supply fly shops on the wholesale level with materials. But these kits may not be appropriate if you are looking to tie flies for saltwater.

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2 hours ago, JEFFSOD said:

 

The Bears Den fly shop has a link on their home page to a list of Best Gift Sets and Kits For Fly Tyers. Some interesting options if you want to direct the better half to a prepacked kit. The Hareline and Wapsi kits should have good materials as they supply fly shops on the wholesale level with materials. But these kits may not be appropriate if you are looking to tie flies for saltwater.

Thanks, this is what I was looking for. I'll check it out and see what they got.

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Perhaps you could find a  bonanza right here of fly tying cache of materials, vise, and tools at a steal of price much less than paying retail.

Many of our friends have passed over the Rainbow Bridge. I have been given in several situations entire collection of  fly tying materials, and tools. Their worst fear would be, "I don't want to see this stuff in some dumpster."  So periodically when some younger youths have a desire to learn more about fly fishing, I just give it away to encourage them to enjoy a wonderful sport. Sometimes I donate it to clubs for raffles.

All you have to do is have people contact you and you can figure out the rest.  

 

Nothing flies by me without a hook!
If my fly is down, That's a good thing.

Public Access.....It's a shore thing. My daily requirement of "Vitamin Sea".


Capt. Ray Stachelek

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Wasting good money on a kit isn’t any better when it’s your better half doing the spending. It’s still wasted money on things that won’t be used. Stay away from material kits. I would also recommend staying away from tool kits.  Outside of the vise you can buy ALL  the tools you NEED for 20 bucks.  For another 20 bucks you can buy more tools that you do not NEED but may be nice to have. 
 

 

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3 hours ago, poopdeck said:

Wasting good money on a kit isn’t any better when it’s your better half doing the spending. It’s still wasted money on things that won’t be used. Stay away from material kits. I would also recommend staying away from tool kits.  Outside of the vise you can buy ALL  the tools you NEED for 20 bucks.  For another 20 bucks you can buy more tools that you do not NEED but may be nice to have. 
 

 

Very true. I’d hate to see her waste money on things that won’t get used. I’m sure I kept the books that had the patterns in them. I’ll find some simple streamers, and give her a list of the materials. This route might be a good way to get my toes back in the pool, so to speak.

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Katz,

 

This is from the Global FlyFisher website.   Can't use a URL so just cut and past this for your. 

HT

 

===================================

 

Don't tie flies

This is in reality a declaration of love to the art and craft of tying fishing flies with lots of tips for the beginning flyfisher

 

Laws of attraction

Henning Eskol - Jens Gronlund

 

Don't tie flies
- if you want easy access to tons of flies.
- if you want to save money on flies.
- unless you live alone.
- unless you have an understanding partner and/or family.
- if you want to appear cool to the opposite sex.

Tie flies
- if you want something to do off-season.
- if you want to fish the best.
- because you like being creative.
- because you want to spend many great hours alone or with friends.

Two main reasons

Why would you want to tie flies?
Condensed from the above I see two main reasons:
1) To get the exact flies that you want, tied to the specs you want and looking as you want them to look.
2) To have a great pastime, a hobby, an activity to keep focus on fishing when there is no fishing.

 

The two ways to get flies - tie'em or buy'em

Martin Joergensen

 

Why wouldn't you tie flies?

Well, there's no reason not to if you ask me - in spite of the title and the intro to this article. I think that fly-tying is a very natural sidekick to fishing, but you might not want to embark on the journey: spending time and money on tools and materials, learning to tie well enough to satisfy yourself and not least spending the time tying.
I know fly anglers who have never tied a fly. They are few, but they do exists. I actually think I know more tyers who rarely fish, but tie a ton of flies, and with some fairness can be called fly-tyers more than fly-fishermen.

I think that fly-tying is a very natural sidekick to fishing

You will NOT save money

Do not embark on the fly-tying adventure to save money on flies, let alone to make money on tying.
You will NOT save money, but on the contrary have a lot of expenses that you didn't have before. If you want to save money, buy your flies. It might seem expensive at a glance, but the expenses are nothing compared to the money you will spend on tools, hooks and materials if you get smitten by the tying virus.
Making money from fly tying might seem an attractive potential, but hesitate and think before you quit your day job. Professional fly-tyers are few and far between, and none of them have become millionaires or even moderately wealthy from tying. Some can make a living, but doing that means tying a lot of flies (A LOT!) and can be compared to all other "creative" jobs gone professional: cooking, taking pictures, gardening, playing music. What attracted you to the art and craft might very soon become the very thing you hate about doing it, and the romantic image of somebody turning their favorite hobby into a livelihood soon turns into a daily routine of doing boring, repetitive chores under stressful conditions and mostly with a deadline. And unless you become highly successful - a rock star in your field so to say - you won't even get paid well.
The far majority of flies that you can buy in shops are tied by low wage African and Asian tyers whose relation to fly-fishing is as a Chinese seamstress' relation to fashion.

 

Tie for consistency

Martin Joergensen - Ken Bonde Larsen

 

Getting started

If you decide to give fly-tying a go, do these two things:

1) Spend money. Get the proper tools and the proper materials. Don't skimp on the quality of either. Buying cheap in the beginning will just mean buying twice and will end up being more costly than spending the proper amount right away.
Buying cheap will also make learning much harder. It's very much easier to tie with good tools and good materials.

2) Get tuition. Sign up for a course, join a club, tie with friends. You can't learn proper fly tying from books or videos. You need a human instructor, and first and foremost you need someone to critique your products. No book or video will give you feedback on your own tying or give you tips specifically for your situation. And no book or video will borrow you a good bobbin holder or let you dig into their stash of good hackle.

 

A 60-dollar Indian fly-tying kit is worth... way less than 60 dollars

Martin Joergensen

 

Do not buy a kit!

There might be kits out there, which are good, but I haven't seen them. All the kits I have seen have really lousy tools and even the best ones have had mediocre materials.
Let me repeat: Don't buy a kit, period!
The flyshop may push one, and make it look like the best deal you can imagine, and to you as a beginner it might look like the best deal ever, but in reality a few items may be OK while the vast majority is close to useless - tools and materials. You get a lot that you don't need, and will miss important items. Add to that that the quality of both tools and materials is rarely even average and generally downright lousy.

Hand pick tools and materials in stead, and start slowly by buying exactly what you need and just a few good items.

Let me repeat: Don't buy a kit, period!

What you need

This list might not be the list that every seasoned fly-tyer on the planet would compile, but it's a pretty good starting point for the beginning fly-tyer. Depending on what you're tying, you might need or want something not on the list, but it will get you started in a good way.

Tools

When it comes to tools, don't necessarily buy the very best, which is often also the most expensive, but buy the best value. And buy to keep. Most tools can last a lifetime if selected and treated properly.

 

Buy a good vise - it will last a lifetime

Snowbee - Renzetti

 

A vise. Buy a good quality vise from a renown manufacturer. Don't think you can save a lot here.
If you buy right, you have a vise for a lifetime.
If you buy wrong you will buy another vise within a year or two like this Reddit-poster who learned the lesson the hard way.

If I were to buy today I'd buy a Renzetti Traveller or a Snowbee Waldron vise. The Waldron is the most expensive at GB£ 299.- or about 450.- US$. Expensive, but also very nice. The Renzetti is about half that, and can typically be had for 200.- US$, which makes it very high value for the money. The Griffin Blackfoot Mongoose and the Peak Vice are even less expensive, and seem to be OK alternatives. I haven't tried them, but they look good.
I would personally never buy anything but a well built, truly rotating vice. I wouldn't buy a "Regal style" vice with spring loaded non-rotating jaws. Lots of good flies are tied on Regal vices, but not on my tying table.

 

Bobbin holders

Martin Joergensen

 

Bobbin holder(s). I'd buy two or three good bobbin holders from the start, but you can of course do with one if you don't mind changing thread.
Simple, high quality, ceramic is the recipe here.
I have used Griffin's ceramic bobbin holders for years, and have been very pleased with them. They are about 12.- US$ a piece. Other manufacturers like Dr. Slick, Veniard, Renzetti all have some excellent models that aren't too expensive at about 10-15.- US$ each, but you can get decent no-name ceramic bobbin holders for about half that price.
Don't buy cheap Indian or Chinese ones. Just don't. I would personally also stay clear of all the models with tension adjustment, "automatic" in the name or any other construction than the simple and classic. Some makes are very expensive such as Pettitjean, C&F and a few others. They aren't bad, but definitely not 5-10 times better than the plain ones, even though the price indicates it.
There's MUCH more about bobbin holders here.

Simple, high quality, ceramic is the recipe here.

Scissors. A good pair of scissors need not be very expensive. They just need to be able to cut - like in cut and not shear or tear.
There's a wealth of options, but if you spend about 15-20 US$ on a pair, you will most likely be fine. Dr. Slick is a very safe bet here at reasonable prices.

 

Get good scissors

Martin Joergensen

 

I'd personally go for a pair with short, straight jaws and one serrated blade, which makes it grab onto the material, and makes cutting bunches of hair a lot easier.
There's MUCH more about scissors here.

Small tools. You will need a bodkin (AKA a dubbing needle) or two. Just buy a cheap one in your fly shop and get one that has a hole in the back end for tying half hitches.
Get a bobbin threader. It's a cheap tool and a great help for threading the bobbin holders.
You can make yourself both a bodkin and a threader using dowel wood and a needle and some mono.
You can also make yourself a Velcro stick and also shave down a tooth brush, and also make a bodkin cleaner from a small lidded plastic container or bottle and a bit of steel wool.
If you need hackle pliers, buy some decent ones, but leave the really expensive and intricately constructed ones on the shelf in the shop. Lots of fly-tyers also use cheap wire clips made for electronics.
A whip finisher might also be a good tool to have. I personally use my hands and don't even own one, but some tyers swear by them.

 

Pliers

Hyperclaw

 

If you will be tying with wire and bead chain, you need a pair of cutters. If your home toolbox doesn't contain a cutter already, buy an inexpensive set in a hardware store. Get a small side cutter and a set of small needle nose or flat nose pliers.
A hair stacker is also nice to have for stacking wings and tails. Buy simple and inexpensive metal stackers useful for the size and type of flies you want to tie. A dubbing twister is also a cheap investment. A simple brass model with no frills is fine, the fancier models with a shaft and a bearing are nice if you want to spend the money.
If you expect to tie a lot with hair - like Arctic fox and deer hair - a comb will be nice too. A simple plastic hair comb will do.

 

 

 

Small, inexpensive tools

Martin Joergensen

 

 

Even simple patterns will lead to the need of more tools and materials than you imagine

Martin Joergensen

 

Materials

There's no single materials list that will give you what you need because the selection depends on what you will be tying. But there's a strategy that will ensure that you get something useful and omnipotent, which can be used for many different flies.

I usually recommend people selecting a few patterns or even a single one, that they can start out with.
For those who have no idea, here's a place to start. The list below takes its vantage point in a particular style of flies, and buying from that list will get you something that can produce many patterns from the outset, and just one or two more materials can expand the range of potential patterns significantly.
After having bought the initial collection, you can slowly stock up on materials depending on the patterns you want to tie. If you tie together with others, you can always borrow or swap and get access to even more materials.

The same thing applies for materials as for tools: DO NOT BUY A KIT! Simple as that. I'm not saying that there aren't any decent material kits out there, but 90% of the kits I have seen contain mediocre - oftentimes lousy - materials, and are certain to contain something you don't need and miss something you need. Simply don't.
Like with the tools a few good, hand picked items will bring you far.

Sharing

Buying in large quantities makes the single item price lower, but the expenses higher, but buying bulk might not be completely out of the question. Buy together with some friends and split. That goes both for hooks and materials.
Expensive materials such as dry fly saddles can be shared. Buy a grizzly and cut it in two, or buy both a grizzly and a brown and split them both. The same thing can be done with skin patches, deer hair, fox tails and many other materials. That will enable you to keep expenses down and still get some good and varying materials.
It also makes sense to buy ten packs of dubbing or flash or ten cheap necks when they are on offer and share with fellow tyers.

Hooks

If you intend to fish with your flies - and I'm almost certain that you do - you will want some decent hooks. Hooks can be expensive, but look out for the less expensive brands and also go through bargain bins to find useful deals.
Buy strategically and just what you need. You might not need all sizes of several hook shapes, and you might not need both down eye and up eye dry fly hooks, or standard and long shank streamer hooks or several curve shapes in your nymph hook selection.

Buying hooks is also a place where large packages makes sense if you have someone to share with.
Buying few hooks at the time means less expenses than buying a lot, but will of course increase the price per hook. Boxes typically come with 10, 25, 50 or 100 hooks, and you can even buy 500 or 1000 hooks bulk, which really lowers the price, but certainly raises the overall expenses. But if you are a handful of tyers buying together 500 hooks to share isn't that many.
Usually the 25 or 50 piece boxes are the best option for the beginner and a fair compromise with regards to price.
Don't be a slave to pattern descriptions, thinking that only the hook mentioned will do. Buy and use generic hooks and select from what you have to suit the pattern best.

Free materials

As a fly tyer you might as well start a good habit right away: always be on the lookout for fly-tying material.
Foam, yarn, wire, flash, rubber, plastic, fur scraps and much, much more can be used. Once you start focusing, you will find many useful materials in craft and hobby stores and even in your own home.
Some materials might seem obvious freebies like thread and wire, but be very selective. Sewing thread does not make good fly-tying thread and most craft store copper wire is way thicker than the wire normally used for smaller flies like nymphs.
Once you get a grasp of the character and quality of fly tying material, you will be able to spot useful materials when you see them.
You can also dig out some waterproof markers for adding color to the finished flies. Black, blue, green and red can be handy, but should you have some in earth colors like tan, dull orange, brown and olive they can be very useful.

The first materials

In the lists below you see what I would fill in my box (or actually yours. Mine is already more than full...) depending on what flies I intended to tie. The colors mentioned are just suggestions. You can buy some, all of them or more depending on your budget and ambitions.
If you have one or some specific patterns that you want to tie, they might call for something that's not in my lists, and you can just adjust your own shopping list accordingly.

General materials

Most fly tyers will need or find use for these materials:
Clear varnish (AKA head cement)
Super glue
Dubbing wax

Depending on fly type

Below you will find some loose suggestions to materials you can buy or acquire depending on what you are tying. The list gives some general suggestions and a color specter, but is of course neither definite nor correct for everybody. But if you are completely lost, it gives you a place to start.

 

Edited by TimS
Having difficulty removing the URL's ?

Currently have aphasia.    Aphasia is a result of my head stroke causing a bleed.   Happened in my Maine vacation in July (2021).   Lucky me less than 1% of people get stroke aphasia.  :(      I'm making project but have been told this is easily 5 months to 1 year for this to improve.   Until then hope you don't mind making sense with what I text.   HT

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 I must Agree and disagree with some of what I read. My opinion and my opinion only.

 

1) I do not find fly tying difficult.  In fact it’s very easy and the learning curve is virtually nonexistent. No need for lessons. There are no fly tying secrets with the advent of YouTube.

 

2) you can save butt tons of money or you can spend butt tons. I save and I save a lot because I don’t tie exotic flies that I don’t fish, I don’t tie flies with the exact materials as somebody else, I don’t tie endless mounts of flies to store in bins, I don’t buy exotic materials and I do a lot of material substitution. Just because one guy ties with a certain material doesn’t mean it’s the only way to tie a fly.

 

3) although I assumed you had the tools since you only asked about a material kit, spending a lot of money on tools is the biggest waste of money. More expensive tools will not tie a better fly or tie a fly any faster. A vise merely holds a hook. I have an 8 dollar vise purchased in the 70’s that holds a hook just fine. That is all a vise needs to do. I have two rotary vises, one was inherited (Griffith) the other (Regal medallion)was $22.00 at auction I personally don’t use the rotary function but I’ve tied for years on a Thompson knockoff (Pettijean tiemaster). Some guys like to spend big bucks for status, some guys simply like the finer things in life, all of which is fine but a 1000 dollar vise won’t tie a better fly than a 60 dollar vise. That’s a fact. Look for a vise that holds a hook not a vise that costs the most. A bobbin holds thread, that’s it. You can spend 50 bucks or 6 bucks for one. I spend 6 bucks and it holds the thread perfectly. bodkin - $4.00, whip finisher - $8.00 (I made one from a Chinese food container handle), good scissors use to be difficult to buy, not any longer -less then 10 bucks.

 

point being, it need not be expensive but it can if that’s what makes you happy. For me, happiness is financial security not shiny things on my desk or in my driveway. 

Edited by poopdeck
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On 11/27/2021 at 4:34 PM, HillTop said:

Katz,

 

This is from the Global FlyFisher website.   Can't use a URL so just cut and past this for your. 

HT

 

===================================

 

Don't tie flies

This is in reality a declaration of love to the art and craft of tying fishing flies with lots of tips for the beginning flyfisher

 

Laws of attraction

Henning Eskol - Jens Gronlund

 

Don't tie flies
- if you want easy access to tons of flies.
- if you want to save money on flies.
- unless you live alone.
- unless you have an understanding partner and/or family.
- if you want to appear cool to the opposite sex.

Tie flies
- if you want something to do off-season.
- if you want to fish the best.
- because you like being creative.
- because you want to spend many great hours alone or with friends.

Two main reasons

Why would you want to tie flies?
Condensed from the above I see two main reasons:
1) To get the exact flies that you want, tied to the specs you want and looking as you want them to look.
2) To have a great pastime, a hobby, an activity to keep focus on fishing when there is no fishing.

 

The two ways to get flies - tie'em or buy'em

Martin Joergensen

 

Why wouldn't you tie flies?

Well, there's no reason not to if you ask me - in spite of the title and the intro to this article. I think that fly-tying is a very natural sidekick to fishing, but you might not want to embark on the journey: spending time and money on tools and materials, learning to tie well enough to satisfy yourself and not least spending the time tying.
I know fly anglers who have never tied a fly. They are few, but they do exists. I actually think I know more tyers who rarely fish, but tie a ton of flies, and with some fairness can be called fly-tyers more than fly-fishermen.

I think that fly-tying is a very natural sidekick to fishing

You will NOT save money

Do not embark on the fly-tying adventure to save money on flies, let alone to make money on tying.
You will NOT save money, but on the contrary have a lot of expenses that you didn't have before. If you want to save money, buy your flies. It might seem expensive at a glance, but the expenses are nothing compared to the money you will spend on tools, hooks and materials if you get smitten by the tying virus.
Making money from fly tying might seem an attractive potential, but hesitate and think before you quit your day job. Professional fly-tyers are few and far between, and none of them have become millionaires or even moderately wealthy from tying. Some can make a living, but doing that means tying a lot of flies (A LOT!) and can be compared to all other "creative" jobs gone professional: cooking, taking pictures, gardening, playing music. What attracted you to the art and craft might very soon become the very thing you hate about doing it, and the romantic image of somebody turning their favorite hobby into a livelihood soon turns into a daily routine of doing boring, repetitive chores under stressful conditions and mostly with a deadline. And unless you become highly successful - a rock star in your field so to say - you won't even get paid well.
The far majority of flies that you can buy in shops are tied by low wage African and Asian tyers whose relation to fly-fishing is as a Chinese seamstress' relation to fashion.

 

Tie for consistency

Martin Joergensen - Ken Bonde Larsen

 

Getting started

If you decide to give fly-tying a go, do these two things:

1) Spend money. Get the proper tools and the proper materials. Don't skimp on the quality of either. Buying cheap in the beginning will just mean buying twice and will end up being more costly than spending the proper amount right away.
Buying cheap will also make learning much harder. It's very much easier to tie with good tools and good materials.

2) Get tuition. Sign up for a course, join a club, tie with friends. You can't learn proper fly tying from books or videos. You need a human instructor, and first and foremost you need someone to critique your products. No book or video will give you feedback on your own tying or give you tips specifically for your situation. And no book or video will borrow you a good bobbin holder or let you dig into their stash of good hackle.

 

A 60-dollar Indian fly-tying kit is worth... way less than 60 dollars

Martin Joergensen

 

Do not buy a kit!

There might be kits out there, which are good, but I haven't seen them. All the kits I have seen have really lousy tools and even the best ones have had mediocre materials.
Let me repeat: Don't buy a kit, period!
The flyshop may push one, and make it look like the best deal you can imagine, and to you as a beginner it might look like the best deal ever, but in reality a few items may be OK while the vast majority is close to useless - tools and materials. You get a lot that you don't need, and will miss important items. Add to that that the quality of both tools and materials is rarely even average and generally downright lousy.

Hand pick tools and materials in stead, and start slowly by buying exactly what you need and just a few good items.

Let me repeat: Don't buy a kit, period!

What you need

This list might not be the list that every seasoned fly-tyer on the planet would compile, but it's a pretty good starting point for the beginning fly-tyer. Depending on what you're tying, you might need or want something not on the list, but it will get you started in a good way.

Tools

When it comes to tools, don't necessarily buy the very best, which is often also the most expensive, but buy the best value. And buy to keep. Most tools can last a lifetime if selected and treated properly.

 

Buy a good vise - it will last a lifetime

Snowbee - Renzetti

 

A vise. Buy a good quality vise from a renown manufacturer. Don't think you can save a lot here.
If you buy right, you have a vise for a lifetime.
If you buy wrong you will buy another vise within a year or two like this Reddit-poster who learned the lesson the hard way.

If I were to buy today I'd buy a Renzetti Traveller or a Snowbee Waldron vise. The Waldron is the most expensive at GB£ 299.- or about 450.- US$. Expensive, but also very nice. The Renzetti is about half that, and can typically be had for 200.- US$, which makes it very high value for the money. The Griffin Blackfoot Mongoose and the Peak Vice are even less expensive, and seem to be OK alternatives. I haven't tried them, but they look good.
I would personally never buy anything but a well built, truly rotating vice. I wouldn't buy a "Regal style" vice with spring loaded non-rotating jaws. Lots of good flies are tied on Regal vices, but not on my tying table.

 

Bobbin holders

Martin Joergensen

 

Bobbin holder(s). I'd buy two or three good bobbin holders from the start, but you can of course do with one if you don't mind changing thread.
Simple, high quality, ceramic is the recipe here.
I have used Griffin's ceramic bobbin holders for years, and have been very pleased with them. They are about 12.- US$ a piece. Other manufacturers like Dr. Slick, Veniard, Renzetti all have some excellent models that aren't too expensive at about 10-15.- US$ each, but you can get decent no-name ceramic bobbin holders for about half that price.
Don't buy cheap Indian or Chinese ones. Just don't. I would personally also stay clear of all the models with tension adjustment, "automatic" in the name or any other construction than the simple and classic. Some makes are very expensive such as Pettitjean, C&F and a few others. They aren't bad, but definitely not 5-10 times better than the plain ones, even though the price indicates it.
There's MUCH more about bobbin holders here.

Simple, high quality, ceramic is the recipe here.

Scissors. A good pair of scissors need not be very expensive. They just need to be able to cut - like in cut and not shear or tear.
There's a wealth of options, but if you spend about 15-20 US$ on a pair, you will most likely be fine. Dr. Slick is a very safe bet here at reasonable prices.

 

Get good scissors

Martin Joergensen

 

I'd personally go for a pair with short, straight jaws and one serrated blade, which makes it grab onto the material, and makes cutting bunches of hair a lot easier.
There's MUCH more about scissors here.

Small tools. You will need a bodkin (AKA a dubbing needle) or two. Just buy a cheap one in your fly shop and get one that has a hole in the back end for tying half hitches.
Get a bobbin threader. It's a cheap tool and a great help for threading the bobbin holders.
You can make yourself both a bodkin and a threader using dowel wood and a needle and some mono.
You can also make yourself a Velcro stick and also shave down a tooth brush, and also make a bodkin cleaner from a small lidded plastic container or bottle and a bit of steel wool.
If you need hackle pliers, buy some decent ones, but leave the really expensive and intricately constructed ones on the shelf in the shop. Lots of fly-tyers also use cheap wire clips made for electronics.
A whip finisher might also be a good tool to have. I personally use my hands and don't even own one, but some tyers swear by them.

 

Pliers

Hyperclaw

 

If you will be tying with wire and bead chain, you need a pair of cutters. If your home toolbox doesn't contain a cutter already, buy an inexpensive set in a hardware store. Get a small side cutter and a set of small needle nose or flat nose pliers.
A hair stacker is also nice to have for stacking wings and tails. Buy simple and inexpensive metal stackers useful for the size and type of flies you want to tie. A dubbing twister is also a cheap investment. A simple brass model with no frills is fine, the fancier models with a shaft and a bearing are nice if you want to spend the money.
If you expect to tie a lot with hair - like Arctic fox and deer hair - a comb will be nice too. A simple plastic hair comb will do.

 

 

 

Small, inexpensive tools

Martin Joergensen

 

 

Even simple patterns will lead to the need of more tools and materials than you imagine

Martin Joergensen

 

Materials

There's no single materials list that will give you what you need because the selection depends on what you will be tying. But there's a strategy that will ensure that you get something useful and omnipotent, which can be used for many different flies.

I usually recommend people selecting a few patterns or even a single one, that they can start out with.
For those who have no idea, here's a place to start. The list below takes its vantage point in a particular style of flies, and buying from that list will get you something that can produce many patterns from the outset, and just one or two more materials can expand the range of potential patterns significantly.
After having bought the initial collection, you can slowly stock up on materials depending on the patterns you want to tie. If you tie together with others, you can always borrow or swap and get access to even more materials.

The same thing applies for materials as for tools: DO NOT BUY A KIT! Simple as that. I'm not saying that there aren't any decent material kits out there, but 90% of the kits I have seen contain mediocre - oftentimes lousy - materials, and are certain to contain something you don't need and miss something you need. Simply don't.
Like with the tools a few good, hand picked items will bring you far.

Sharing

Buying in large quantities makes the single item price lower, but the expenses higher, but buying bulk might not be completely out of the question. Buy together with some friends and split. That goes both for hooks and materials.
Expensive materials such as dry fly saddles can be shared. Buy a grizzly and cut it in two, or buy both a grizzly and a brown and split them both. The same thing can be done with skin patches, deer hair, fox tails and many other materials. That will enable you to keep expenses down and still get some good and varying materials.
It also makes sense to buy ten packs of dubbing or flash or ten cheap necks when they are on offer and share with fellow tyers.

Hooks

If you intend to fish with your flies - and I'm almost certain that you do - you will want some decent hooks. Hooks can be expensive, but look out for the less expensive brands and also go through bargain bins to find useful deals.
Buy strategically and just what you need. You might not need all sizes of several hook shapes, and you might not need both down eye and up eye dry fly hooks, or standard and long shank streamer hooks or several curve shapes in your nymph hook selection.

Buying hooks is also a place where large packages makes sense if you have someone to share with.
Buying few hooks at the time means less expenses than buying a lot, but will of course increase the price per hook. Boxes typically come with 10, 25, 50 or 100 hooks, and you can even buy 500 or 1000 hooks bulk, which really lowers the price, but certainly raises the overall expenses. But if you are a handful of tyers buying together 500 hooks to share isn't that many.
Usually the 25 or 50 piece boxes are the best option for the beginner and a fair compromise with regards to price.
Don't be a slave to pattern descriptions, thinking that only the hook mentioned will do. Buy and use generic hooks and select from what you have to suit the pattern best.

Free materials

As a fly tyer you might as well start a good habit right away: always be on the lookout for fly-tying material.
Foam, yarn, wire, flash, rubber, plastic, fur scraps and much, much more can be used. Once you start focusing, you will find many useful materials in craft and hobby stores and even in your own home.
Some materials might seem obvious freebies like thread and wire, but be very selective. Sewing thread does not make good fly-tying thread and most craft store copper wire is way thicker than the wire normally used for smaller flies like nymphs.
Once you get a grasp of the character and quality of fly tying material, you will be able to spot useful materials when you see them.
You can also dig out some waterproof markers for adding color to the finished flies. Black, blue, green and red can be handy, but should you have some in earth colors like tan, dull orange, brown and olive they can be very useful.

The first materials

In the lists below you see what I would fill in my box (or actually yours. Mine is already more than full...) depending on what flies I intended to tie. The colors mentioned are just suggestions. You can buy some, all of them or more depending on your budget and ambitions.
If you have one or some specific patterns that you want to tie, they might call for something that's not in my lists, and you can just adjust your own shopping list accordingly.

General materials

Most fly tyers will need or find use for these materials:
Clear varnish (AKA head cement)
Super glue
Dubbing wax

Depending on fly type

Below you will find some loose suggestions to materials you can buy or acquire depending on what you are tying. The list gives some general suggestions and a color specter, but is of course neither definite nor correct for everybody. But if you are completely lost, it gives you a place to start.

 

HillTop,

 

              That is a very interesting read. There's a lot of information to digest. Thank you for taking the time and effort in posting this. I sincerely appreciate it. I'll take the information presented and use it to make a more informed decision . Thanks again.

 

                                                                                                     KarpsnKatz

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