Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Who ties their own flies?

Having a blast with fly fishing and getting much better at fly tying. Bass and bluegill

What waters are you fishing? I fish Canyon Lake a lot and my hood has access to the Guadalupe. Know of a few good bluegill spots on the lake.

Have only done a little fly fishing here and there. Will probably be something I get into, but not there yet.

I tie my own. Dad taught me to flyfish at age 6. I enjoy it on occasion. Going to Alaska to try it there. Can't wait.

I just use cigarette butts for bluegill.

I used to. I haven't done it for many years since I'm no longer close to good trout water.
Still have all the gear and enough flies I like to use to keep me supplied if I need them.

Glo bugs and the very occasional wooly booger.

Have the stuff to make some good pike flies but haven't made them yet.

Catch them with a shiny hook

Them dice em up make ‘chop-sueyfish’ and feed the little bastard back to his buds.

Bring a bucket. lol

I read a story in an old fishing book when I was a kid about a guy that was fishing in an old rowboat eating his lunch and dropped a spoon overboard. He saw a big old Bass come up and swallow it and got the ideal to invent the first spoon casting lure. Seems like it was the guy that invented the Johnson Silver Minnow, IIRC.

haven't fly fished since I was a teen.

Tiny poppers work well for bluegills on a fly rod. A nice light 7’ 3 WGT rod is a blast !

I tie my own flies for the most part. If going to a new area i will stop at a fly shop and get some information and buy a few flies, then copy them and use my own.
I tie mostly in the winter for what I think I will need, sometimes I will make it to July. 😁
This my set up now.

Have worked at it for about 65 years - off and on - depending on local fly fishing opportunities. Doing none these days down here days, but will be up in Pequot Lakes area in July, so will have reason to rev it up.

In the last few months have built a 6 wt, 2 5's and a 4. The four is my bluegill rig....9' though. I've gone from offshore fishing to the pond and loving it. Who'd have thought.

I tie 95% of the trout flies I use. I purchase most of the smallmouth flies use because the materials needed to purchase just to tie a few fly patterns are expensive and can only be purchase in quantities larger than I need.

I limit the size of my bass flies cause I just cant send em far enough with a 6 wt. May build an 8 wt.

SS336 how do you like that Peak Rotary Vise ?
I am wanting tomstart thing my own flies and have been eyeing the Peak vise you have.

I found a H D Thompson vise for $12. I doubt I'll ever need more. Made in USA

I’ve done it for years for trout, steelhead, salmon, pike, bass (LM and stripers) and sharks. I found early on that it allowed me to more precisely match local hatches. It’s very satisfying to come up with a pattern that out fishes the locally available patterns. The availability of YouTube should make learning a lot easier today than it was decades ago.

I tied somewhere in the neighborhood of 85 or 90 dozen last winter. One nymph pattern that I fish on Hebgen Lake accounted for 40 dozen of those. I got sick of knocking out 2 dozen at a time and running out in two mornings last summer. 40 dozen will get me through the 6 week Gulper season.