chefmike love your new tag line. As a big Gierach fan who is also a fan of bamboo, I heartily agree!

Thanks Mickfly
Mike

Rex, your typically Texas exaggeration of my annual tying volume got me thinking about my actual output. It's probably closer to 1500 than 1500 dozen. Since I don't tie commercially and tie mostly for trips and donations, I never count.

I do have a quandary, though. Even though I have enough materials in my Tying Room to tie flies full time for the rest of my life, about every third fly I tie requires materials I don't have, necessitating further purchases. Do others have that problem?

Mick, that happens to me every time I want to tie. I'm always missing something.

That 1,500 dozen number came from the order size required to get a quantity discount from one of these suppliers. 18,000 flies is a whole lot of flies. And that makes me wonder how many flies a mom and pop style fly shop actually sells per year? If they are selling 18,000 flies a year, then just how many flies are we leaving in the trees and water when we go fishing???

The late, great Al Campbell of Fly Anglers Online wrote a column back in 2001 about "getting rich quick" via commercial fly tying. While he never answered the question you just asked, he did say that fly shops could by flies, even the best flies, for under $11 a dozen, and sources in Kenya and Asia were selling them for under $5 a dozen. He also did the math for someone who could tie a fly every five minutes and did so 10 hours a day, six days a week, all year (obviously an unrealistic dedication to tying), and sold them for $10.50 a dozen. Subtracting cost of materials, excise taxes, etc, you could make a bit over $18k/year. In other words, not as much as you could make at Whataburger, where you'd probably get health benefits and overtime.

I remember reading that article. I think there are easier ways to get rich than commercial fly tying...

I totally agree with you both..I have a few friends that have tied commercially and they lasted about 2 years before they gave up. Another friend of mine does make a very good living tying he ties realistic patterns that are used in most of the movies made in this country. With petra around the corner it seems that movie makers cannot use natural lnsects or bugs that might be harmed for a movie he also ties for interior designers in Europe as well as museums. A very talented guy and a great fisherman.
On the other question about materials I am the same..........I have 35 years collection of materials and still buy more for new patterns etc.
Mike

And yes, I just placed an order for more tying materials -- Spirit River UV2 Dubbing in a variety of colors.

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I'm encouraged to see the concern expressed for the laborers. Thank you for that. Wish it were clear whether we'd be helping or hurting by buying 17� flies.

Just yesterday, I ordered fly hooks (with "free" Cabela's credit card funny-money). Even on sale, the Gamakatsu barbless hooks were 19� a piece . . . more for bare hooks than the sweatshops or microbusinesses are charging for a completed fly.
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Mcfly and Rex...You guys are hitting seriously close to home on the fly tying materials. For instance most of my hooks are kept in a couple of 18 liter storage boxes and I just realized this morning that I need to order another thousand of the hooks that I tie the foam spiders on. For those that are just starting tying and think they are going to save money FORGET IT. I have 28 of those 18 liter boxes that store tying materials in what used to be my office at the house, and that dosen't count all the other materials stored in various drawers it that room.

On another subject some think ordering cheap flies on the internet is a good thing, but I look for the highest quality instead. I most often order just a few so I can fish a couple and keep one as an example to use for reference for my learning to tie that particular pattern. A couple of weeks ago I received a catalog from The Fly Box in Redding California and could not help but notice they had 25 pages of flys in their catalog. I have been a customer for many years and they have never screwed up an order to me. I may have to wander over to their web site one of these days, but there is no telling how much that will cost me.

Big Dale

Saving money. To save money on fishing, I say invest in a gillnet or possibly go high end with an electroshock machine. My sarcasm is crude but my point is, I'm in it for the enjoyment. Whenever I have obsessed over saving money, I've lost the fun. That's my personal opinion and it's worth possibly as high as two cents.

I decided to give some of these a shot and order some I didn't think I would ever tie, but wanted to try on the rivers here, and a few to put in a fly box for my bro in law who's new to fly fishing and gets hung up a lot . They came in yesterday, and was about what I expected. There were some that looked good and others I had to get the scissors to. Most were just in the OK range, but that's what you get for those pennies. I got some tapered leaders to give him since he's still learning. They were an off color as were a lot of the packaging, wasn't sure if that was really the color or not. Kinda like it's been in the window of a closed down fly shop for the last 10 years. Looked like some flies were made in Guatemala and the rest who knows, zip locked bags. The buggers were decent. I figured a dozen for 1.19, he can loose a few and not be too worried about it. Honest opinion though, I think i'll stick to my own, or from a reputable tier from now on. But I will have it bookmarked if I need to fill a quick box full of buggers and poppers for someone that has a tendency to hang them as ornaments in trees. Lesson learned. Go ahead with the "I told ya so's"

About $20 worth. Worth about $5.

put some head cement or sally's hard as nails on the heads; they'll last longer than you think-p-

Well said Aggro............as the saying goes......."you gets what ya pay for"..........
Mike

The Container Store loves to see me coming. I stop by frequently for another waterproof (bug and critter proof) container for my burgeoning selection of tying materials. My Tying Room is full, so I have had to resort to vertical stacking of boxes. I don't buy hooks by the thousands, like Dale does, but regularly order 500-700 at a time in 100 hook boxes.

Dale, speaking of The Fly Shop, they are one of my favorites as well. They pride themselves in having the largest fly selection in any catalog or website. One of the neat things about their site is that many of the pattern descriptions also contain lists of tying materials for those flies. I had the pleasure of visiting their shop in the late 1990s to meet a guide who took me out on the Lower Sacramento and helped me catch my biggest trout. Great shop!

Mike Mercer, one of their managers, is a gifted fly tyer and designer. He's also a super nice guy. I've made more than one phone call to him for advice on figuring out how to tie one of his patterns. Recently, he helped me with a special project. I was tying a fly box to auction off a Trout Unlimited fund raising dinner in San Francisco and asked his advice on what set of flies he would include in such a box for the local trout waters of northern California. He provided a detailed list and was more than helpful with the needed materials as well.