Fly-tying: a complete course for absolute beginners.

By Bernard Sunderland

Contents page:

1. Introduction

3. The essential tools

5. First materials

7. Beginning

9. Black and Peacock Spider (wet)

12. The anatomy of a hackle... and a cock pheasant tail feather.

14. Red Tag

16. Pheasant Tail

19. Diawl Bach

21. Recap

22. The Finger Whipping

24. Pheasant Tail Nymph

26. Buzzer

27. Interlude

Introduction:

This fly-tying course is intended for complete beginners. All essential steps are dealt with as you meet them, each tool, material and technique being introduced together with a fly pattern which illustrates it. To gain full benefit from this course it should be followed from beginning to end taking each step in turn.

At all stages, explanation will be given of details which often baffle beginners.

The patterns themselves are all usable, and are the more popular of those which are either traditional or modern.

By the end of the course you will be able to tackle a wide range of patterns and progress to more advanced techniques.

Fly tying (or as some insist, “Fly dressing”) is not an exact science. There are “rules” relating to the correct proportions of the parts of a pattern but you are free to flaunt the rules if you wish, unless you want to win a fly tying competition. Wherever I make a recommendation, whether it be tools, method or whatever, you can be sure that other people have other ideas. I recommend that you test other ideas, after deriving full benefit from those offered here!

The first six patterns all use the "First Materials" as specified. If your have been in any doubt about learning to tie flies, this gives you an excellent and economical introduction.

The essential tools:

In the beginning you need:

vice, bobbin holder, scissors, half-hitch tool, hackle pliers, dubbing needle.

I know that there can be much agonising by a tyro over his or her first set of equipment. The guiding rule is don't spend too much at this stage.

Vice:

Basically there are two types – rotary and not rotary. Also you must decide whether you need a table-top vice which is mounted on a heavy base, or one with a table-edge clamp. The latter makes it easier to manage the materials, so go for this unless you are unable to clamp on the table edge. A rotary vice is certainly useful but bear in mind that you will not miss what you have not had. I used a £20 vice for several years before upgrading. Under no circumstances should you buy an expensiveor even middle range vice (£50 plus) without trying them. A visit to your nearest friendly fly tying shop is strongly recommended.

Bobbin holder:

This is a simple spring holder incorporating a tube through which the thread is directed to the tying point. The tube can be either metal or ceramic? Which is better?

You will elsewhere be advised that a ceramic is better and that constant use wears a groove in a metal tube. In fact I have tied many thousands of flies with the very first low-price metal-tubed bobbin holder which I purchased and it shows no fault. On the other hand I have two ceramic ones which are finely abrasive round the edge of the tube, and they cut the thread. Again, do not be tempted to overspend at the outset.

Scissors:

Most of the scissors offered by fly-tying stockists are suitable. The essentials are that they should befine pointed, and clip a hair neatly right at the tip.

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There are many other tools and accessories, but this is all you need for now. So on to the first materials …

First materials:

General:

Thread: start with a 'standard' type, i.e. polyester thread of about 70 denier. For example, Uni 8/0 or Sheer 14/0. Do not be fooled by the '/0' scale. It is meaningless because different manufacturers have different scales. Do not buy specialist threads at this stage, such as extra strong GSP (gel spun polyethylene) or Kevlar, or the extra fine threads. Start with a spool each of black and brown. Ignore any information about it being waxed. This does not refer to the kind of waxing that we sometimes use when tying flies.

Varnish: a small bottle of clear head varnish. Again, nothing special. Do not buy a curing resin or coloured varnish. In all cases a coloured fly head is better achieved with clear varnish over colouredthread.

Hooks: each pattern will specify the type of hook to be used. As you progress you might become baffled by the wide range of hooks available for fly-tyers. Those anglers who buy their flies are not aware of them. Do not worry about it at this stage. Use normal quality hooks from well-known brands, down-eye only. Up-eye hooks are still supplied but are out-dated and are a bad design in terms of hooking properties. To begin with, buy some dry fly hooks, preferably round bend, in sizes 14 and 16 and some wet fly hooks (i.e. heavier wire) in sizes 12, 14 and 16. The wet hooks may be either round bend or sproat. You will find that the usable length of the shank on a sproat hook is rather less than on a round bend hook of the same overall length. If you prefer barbless I suggest that you buy barbed, which are easier to obtain, and crush the barb with small pliers.

A few standard pattern hooks, all size 14:

Top row: heavy wire sproat bend: light wire, sproat bend: dry fly, round bend: all purpose round bend, longer shankKamasan B175, Fulling Mill 31530: Kamasan B170, FM 31550: FM 31310: Kamasan B400, FM 31180

Bottom row: nymph hook : heavy wire grub: light wire grub: long shank wetFM 31270: Kamasan B110, FM 31165: Kamasan B100: Kamasan B830, FM 31710

(an extra bend applied to the nymph hook will make a Klinkhamer hook)

(The brands are given as typical examples, not as exclusive recommendations)

For the first patterns:

Hackles: You will at some point be introduced to 'genetic capes', both cock and hen. No need for them yet, all you need is an Indian hen capes, black and 'red game', and the same colours in

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Beginning:

First, I apologise to all left-handed readers. Please imagine the mirror image of all instructions.

Set up your vice and place your tools near your right hand. Tool holders are available but not essential. Load your bobbin holder with the black thread. Place a #14 wet fly hook in the vice. It is often advised that you should place the hook so deep in the jaws of the vice that the point of the hook is masked, the purpose being to prevent catching the thread on the hook point. I find that this creates more problems than it solves and I recommend that you position the hook as illustrated below.

Before going on to the first pattern, we will look at the method of starting the thread on the hook and winding 'touching turns to the bend', which is the way many patterns commence:

Please note that although we are about to use black thread for the first pattern, a light coloured thread is shown here simply for visibility.

Vice the hook as shown. Lay the thread over the hook near the eye, holding tightly to the free end. The normal direction of winding is always away from you, over the hook shank.

Keeping tight hold of the free end, lift the thread with the bobbin holder and cross over the turn of thread on top of the hook shank. Continue down behind the shank to make a complete turn, trapping the free end.

If you have difficulty due to slipping on the hook, take a full tun just behind the eye before crossing over.

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Black & Peacock Spider:

There are a number of black spider patterns all of which are successful fish catchers. The Black & Peacock is possibly the most popular and is a great all-rounder. It can be fished deep or shallow and I usually have one on a dropper when fishing wet. Some people tie it with a cock hackle but I preferthe softer hen hackle or the even more flexible starling hackle.

Set in the vice a #14 wet fly hook. I am using here a #14 Kamasan B175 heavy wire sproat.Start the black thread at the eye, making sure to keep a 3ins tail of thread, and wind in touching turns to the bend. Do not trim off the end of the thread.

At the bend, tie in two lengths of peacock herl which have been paired by placing the butt of one to the tip of the other*. The tied-in tips should extend the length of the hook shank but for about 3mm short of the eye to add to the bulkof the body. Wind the thread forward over the ends of the herl.

Wind the herl forward in close turns and secure at the thread position. (Spot the deliberate mistake - keep the two strands closer together than in the first photo). Follow by winding the thread tag forward in wide open turns but windingin the reverse direction i.e. over the shank toward you.. Secure it also with the working thread.**

The thread should now be positioned about 2 to 3mm back from the eye. Take a hackle from near the neck end of your black hen cape. The length of the barbs*** should be about the same as the body length. Hold the tip and stroke the barbs back. Hold it at a steep angle against the hook shank and tie it in at the thread position. Bind it down so that the thread ends up close to the eye.

Take hold of the butt end of the hackle with the pliers. With finger and thumb of the left hand ( slightly damped can be an advantage) stroke back the barbs and hold them while commencing to wind the hackle over and back. As you come round under and toward you, you will of course have to let go with the finger and thumb but with a bit of luck the barbs will remain in the laid-back attitude until as you bring the pliers up you can take hold again. 3 full turns of the hackle will be sufficient. (imported flies are often over-dressed). Watch carefully as you wind to ensure that the stem of the hackle is laid neatly in touching turns – if allowed to spread you will soon run out of space!

Secure the hackle with 2 or 3 tight turns of thread, then snip off the waste butt of the hackle. Most wet flies have a positive “head” formed from windings of the thread. Hold the hackle back with the left hand while winding a neat head.

Finally take your trusty half-hitch tool. Loop round it once, slide up to and over the eye of the hook and transfer the loop onto the head. Do this twice more. Using your needle, apply a drop of varnish to the head.The fly is complete.

Note the little wisp sticking out near the eye. This is looked down upon by purists and will not win any prizes. On the other hand, it will still catch fish. It could be removed with Adobe Photoshop!

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* There are many different recommendations as to how many lengths of peacock herl should be use, sometimes even asmany as six.I do not understand why, it is not necessary. The reason for using a pair laid 'head to tail' is a) it tends to offset the large difference in width of the quill between the two ends, b) also the difference in the length of the flue and c) it cancels the direction of the flue, lying toward the tip, if the quills are laid in the same direction.

** This thread tag is being used as an invisible rib to reinforce the peacock herl. Without reinforcement, the first time a trout's teeth snag the herl it will all unwind. The reverse-direction rib traps it. Of course it must be tight. When securing it with the working thread it must be held tight while applying at least 4 tight turns of thread. It is sometimes recommended that durability can be achieved by twisting the thread with the herl rather than using this reverse rib. I do not like the method, but try it by all means.

*** My preferred length of hackle for any pattern described as a “spider” is that it should reach a little beyond the overall length of the hook when laid back. Some people prefer longer and some shorter. The important point is that they should be mobile in the water.

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Now tie four more, and then tie four or five on #16 hooks, making choice of peacock herl with shorter flue and a smaller hackle. It is good practice always to tie in batches. All the details, particularly of correct positioning, become apparent with repetition. I will not repeat this, but it applies to all the following patterns.

Now let us move on to an anatomy of hackles, which so far has been taken for granted...

The anatomy of a hackle ...

The word “hackle” has two meanings – 1. Any fibrous material which radiates out from the body of a fly dressing2. A feather of a type which is used to create the above.3.

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