Teaching myself to tie

[Bob Loblaw]

A couple of months ago a family friend whose father had passed away last year sent me a few boxes of his old fishing stuff, mostly heavy gear, but to my surprise there was one box with a vice and some tying gear. A little table top organizer, threads, wires, some hackles, furs, and an assortment of cheniles. TONS of marabou and flash, I think all he tied were buggers.

So this weekend I set it up, turned on Youtube and gave it a go. Lessons learned.

1. Don't go smaller than a size 12 hook until you've figured out your fingers from your thumbs.
2. Bead head soft hackles are great starter flies!
3. Proportion is hard to master.
4. Some of the plainest looking flies are actually tricky to tie! PT nymph took me an hour to get one that looked half decent.
5. Head cement and hackles don't mix. It sucks when you tie one that looks nice and you drop a blob of head cement on it right at the end.
6. IT'S ADDICTING!