Fly Tying

I used to tie flies for trout fishing and pike fishing.  I would say I tied at least 100 flies a year.  I don't fly fish anymore, and I think I may miss fly tying as much as I miss fly fishing.  It's a really enjoyable pasttime.  I always enjoyed using hair and feathers from the game I pursued (canada good biots, partridge feathers, pheasant tails, deer hair). 

 probably in the neighborhood of close to a thousand over the last 12 months. saturday/sunday mornings are watching fishing shows, tying, and coffee. i can only tie until my coffee buzz has me shaking too bad to tie, heh. what are you tying for, and what kind of setup did you throw together?

Mostly for trout but want to start doing some fly fishing for some other species in ND also. I got a renzetti traveler with the cam jaws (I read a lot of reviews that were good for a starter/vise you can use for awhile). I got the basic tools and probably too much in materials but I guess I'll find out what I'll use and what I won't...that was the hardest part, buying things that I don't know how useful they are and how often I'll use them!

sounds like youre pretty well set up. Renzetti's are top of the line, i highly doubt youll ever have a reason to buy another vise. however in order to tie flies larger than a 1/0 hook, youll have to get the saltwater jaws for your vise. one piece of advice to take to the bank is to get a ceramic bobbin. theyre worth their weight in gold when you really have to wrench on some buckhair or any large pattern you need to hold together.  youtube has lots of good content to learn from, and lots of people tie patterns differently.

I believe it said it was good to 4/0 size hook...I did get a ceramic bobbin, I had two different sizes on order but decided that I better just get the one that I thought I would use the most right now.  I basically got all the essentials for tools but where I was stumped...materials, there's so much out there.  It seems like you nickel and dime a lot of it but how about necks and saddles, is one (metz vs. whiting) really that much better than the other for the cost?  Confusing and like I said, almost exhausting!

the two best sites for materials ive found, for prices and quality are www.saltwaterflies.com and feathercraft.com. even across brands of materials there isnt a consistent quality of product. sometimes you get the screwjob and sometimes you dont. if you order larger quantity of material it helps., instead of smaller packages get larger ones. you have a lot more to choose from. so instead of getting a 1/4 oz pack of material and having a lot of it useless, get a full oz package and normally 3/4 of the pack is good usable material. if you can buy from a local shop theyll generally refund you if you get bad stuff, but are generally more expensive than online shops. you dont need to drop more than 200 on materials to start tying. you can concentrate on a specific fly thats fairly easy, and move into more difficult patterns when you have the others down. one thing i will say is that patience is the name of the game. the hooks are the most expensive part about the fly, so dont waste them on flies that are turning out unsightly. instead unwrap everything youve done and try it again until it comes out true.

Thanks for the advice and insight...patience, now that's something I've got to work on!  Getting excited nonetheless...