Good Starter Vice????

[Woodman]

I tied a lot of flies on an old Thompson A...

[royewest]

I tied a lot of flies on an old Thompson A...

Me, too. But I sure love my Renzetti!

[Joe Mateas]

I like my Peak, good quality, not the prettiest vice but it holds strong and rotates smooth. For the price I think you'd be hard pressed to find a better vice. My advice is the same that I was given by the guy who taught me to tie my first flie(when I was 14) when I was buying my first vice and I think of every time I buy just about anything. He said, "don't cheap out but don't over spend, buy the best you can afford, you'll respect it more and you won't need to buy another one too soon".

[Ben Kobrin]

Buy it nice or buy it twice.

[FISHEYE]

I started tying on a thompson A vise when I was maybe 10. I think I used it until I was 45. Then I tied until recently on a danvise. I could not believe what a difference it made. I bought a Nor-Vise a month ago and it is incredible. I will probably use the others for a few flies here and there but I love the Nor-Vise and the automatic bobbin that Norm invented.

[jbird]

Another vote for the Danvise. Heckuva vise for the money.

[Reno Flytyer]

Like Mike O. I too started with gluttony, wrath raised its ugly head sometime after (I still have issues with road rage), and lately, even at my advanced age, lust has become a struggle I give in to regularly. Good luck with your first vice.
RFT

[Ed Wahl]

Allright Ross(can't you give a real name?) I'll help you out.

Take the first two answers to your post and go with that.

If you can find a Thompson 'A' vise or something similar grab it. Most of us old timers have tied everything we needed with one of these.

The rest is more specialty stuff. Rotary tying and big fly tying can be dealt with whenever you need to move up but to get started you just need a quality vise. No frills, no rotary, no spring loaded jaws, no high end materials.

There's no reason in the world to spen 250$ for a vise to start out with, no matter what anyone here has said. These guys have gravitated upwards as their skill levels have demanded but everyone starts out with just a vise holding a hook. Just buy a simple quality vise and that's all you'll need for finding your footing in the fly tying world.
Ed

[Dan LeCount]

Dyna king kingfisher
Right around a hundred bucks and if you get an extra set of jaws it will last 20 years or more of commercial level tying.

[BigSmallFly]

To put my two cents in:

A Vice really is only to do one thing. Hold the hook. When starting to tie, I tied Pheasant tails, Woolly Buggers, etc.. It was not until a few years later, that I was able to appreciate a Rotary Vice, and the quality difference in a brand name. My first vice was not a brand name and was only $30. Sure since then I have purchased a few other top of the line Vice's before finding the best one for me. They all have their niches that you will either prefer or not. But until you have decided that you like tying your own flies, just check to be sure that the vice will hold the hook, and just about all of them that well enough to get you started.

FYI: I started to really appreciate all the bells and whistles of the big name vices when I would trade my share of gas money, or lunch, to the others going fishing that day. The best payoff was a Montanna Trip (especially when they all fished often enough not to loose too many flies). 6 dozen flies to not have to pay for gas to Montanna? I would have tied that many anyway.