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Fly tying: Angle for Accuracy
Here's a great tip for beginning fly tiers—tie at angles. That might sound simple, but it's a technique that a lot of folks don't employ enough at the vise–and the results can be immediately visible. Video of Angle for AccuracyAbove, Tim Flagler shows us how to not only use angles to tie and secure threat…
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New gear: Fair Flies fly-tying brushes
Finding the best fly-tying materials can be really difficult, particularly when you take into account things like finding ethically sourced materials that provide living-wage jobs for the folks who assemble them or even tie flies for a living. Fair Flies Fly Tying Brush from Angling Trade Media on Vimeo. Fair Flies is an Oregon-based company…
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Fly tying: The Wood Special
In the Northeast, where fly fishing got it's American start on the brook trout waters of the Adirondacks, the Catskills and in the north woods of Maine, older, more traditional flies still find their way into fly boxes. And why not? They're beautiful creations that were meant to attract native brook trout in tumbling mountain…
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Fly tying: Cleaning a Dubbing Needle
For those of us who tie flies and work with various resins, from head cement to full-on UV materials, a dubbing needle is likely our tool of choice for applying the goo. For years, I used a square of craft foam to clean the needle after each use—I'd just poke the needle through the foam…
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Fly tying: Wood Duck Heron
As a utilitarian fly tier, if I can find a fly that's both simple to tie and effective on the water, I'm in a pretty good place. I like flies that I can a dozen of at a single sitting and not feel like I've been hunched over the vise for hours. Video of Wood…
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Fly tying: The hobby knife
Back in my early newspaper days, when we actually used flats to lay pages out on lightboards, I never went anywhere without my trusty X-Acto knife. I used it to trim border tape, surgically slice columns to fit the allotted space and do all sorts of trimming once the actual journalism was done and producing…
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Fly tying: The Palomino Midge
Normally, when I hear Tim Flagler say that he's tying a fly in a size 20, "but feel free to go smaller," I just throw up my hands and resign myself to the fact that the pattern he's demonstrated is for fingers smaller and more dextrous than mine. Video of Palomino MidgeBut, as you'll see…
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