If your fishing rivers. A tightened belt...if you go for a swim your waders will turn into anchors without it. Choose life.
If your fishing rivers. A tightened belt...if you go for a swim your waders will turn into anchors without it. Choose life.
Well, lets add at least a Caddis Fly (nothing better than taking them on the dry fly).
I just spent the week and got a few nice ones with that (just make sure you have given the trout time to drowned the fly, turn back, and take it, before
setting the hook, or you will just have your fly coming back at you)
A Micro Damsel and a Pheasant Tail Nymph.
I can't believe how few folks go up fishing and don't have that one in the box!! ( folks were getting nothing all day while me and another guy probably
had 40 between the 2 of us in a few hours!)
Chironomids Fishing is still a big part of BC Fly Fishing, so you need those.
And Booby's, which is probably the most recent fly to enter the box of "need to have" for those days when nothing else will work.
1 Dry Line
1 Full Sink (I recommend the clear intermediate sink)
A Sink Tip would be next.
And a really fast full sinking line would be my 4th pick, for Boobies and deep water chronies.
The addiction is real. The expensive rabbit trail has become a reality haha
Is there anyone on here or someone you know of that ties and sells custom flies? Or is it worth getting into tying my own? What would the cost be of getting a basic starter kit or all the essentials needed to start tying chironomids? Order online or source from a local store?
Thanks
Costs can go skyrocketing real quick when it comes to flytying etc.
I have more material than I know what to do with, all because you think at one point "oh, I will tie this and that etc."
The money I have in it would have been better spent on just buying flies.
Most real fly shops have flies tied by private guys.
Some places have better ties and others not so much.
To be honest, get yourself a decent vise if you go this route.
Doesn't have to be top of the line, just don't cheap out.
If you can find out what size of hooks to buy per the fly pattern you are tying from others, you will save money.
Most folks only use 2 or 3 sizes for a particular fly pattern, but there are many different flies, so you end up with all sorts of styles and sizes of hooks.
Chironimids are a cheap fly to tie and don't require a ton of material, just different colors.
Same goes for mayflies.
Micro damsels and micro leeches can be done for cheap as well, just different maribou colors.
Simi Seal Leaches are to bad a cost either.
But then material that require saddle hackle etc can start bringing cost up.
So, go in with keeping one pattern in several colors in mind, tie them all, and that should keep the costs down.
Then repeat for the next fly pattern.
Going in and thinking you need all patterns under the sun (like I did when I started) is what is going to make the budget blow up.
In the mean time, patterns you haven't tied, you just buy for now.
Why tie???
Simple, you can have flies that you want, not what someone else has to offer.
Therapeutic wise....well the jury is still out on that! (can be frustrating).
There are some patterns that really are best left to buying, unless you don't mind the costs and all the time you have to spend to just tie 1 of them.
Hank Patterson videos are also full of knowledge
Don't really need it.
Some patterns like chironomids, if you use thread to tie bodies, you can use uv resin or hard as nails.
I use the Loon product of UV resin in Thin, but lately was tols about using a differentResin but cant think of name off hand.
Hard as nails works well too.
Only reason other than giving the pattern a little UV reflection is to make the fly more durable.
But, many patterns you can't use the resin on anyways.
Maribou etc are examples where you don't use anything obviously.
If you use tinsel for the body, then yes, a fish will tear it up quick without a coating.
Material that are UV are better to use if you cant use the Resins on the pattern.
But I don't get hung up on the whole UV thing.
My Mayflies are just pheasant tail and peacock herl, nothing fancy and work just fine.
If anything, I would recommend beads over the UV debate.
Hard as nails is cheap.
UV resins are expensive to buy, but last a long time.
And UV resins can "peel off" oddly enough.
I learned all my fly fishing from him:
1. Human over population
2. Government burden and overreach