My Winter Fly Tying Essentials Guide

Winter evenings are perfect for spending time at the vise learning new patterns and stocking up on old favorites. With these bitter cold nights fast approaching (or already here in some parts of the world) I thought I’d discuss some of my favorite tools and supplies, practical discoveries, and my most often used materials to hopefully clarify and simplify some aspects of tying that can be intimidating for beginning tyers.

While I’m no expert and I tend to enjoy catching fish on flies I tied more than I enjoy the actual art of fly tying, I have been doing it for a while and have picked up a few things in the past 20+ years. Before I begin, let me preface this by stating that fly tying (just like fly fishing) is a unique experience for each individual and there are so many aspects that determine how one approaches it. Therefore, everything I’m going to discuss is specific to my experience, but may or may not be applicable to others.

Getting Started

As has been echoed by experienced tyers everywhere, a newcomer to fly tying should resist the urge to buy a kit, which often includes a vise that can barely hold a hook, poor quality tools, and low-grade scraps of materials that they will either deplete quickly or never use. Instead they should begin by first acquiring a decent rotary vise, bobbin, and a good pair of sharp, small scissors then branch out as needed based on the patterns they want/need to learn.

Rite Bobbin

Ceramic bobbins are cheap and often included in fly tying kits, so most tyers including myself begin with them. They certainly do the job, but the drawback is the fixed amount of tension they provide, unless the arms are manually bent to either increase or reduce tension, which will eventually lead to a broken bobbin. Also, with a standard bobbin the risk of breaking thread is much higher and more often than not it will break at the most crucial point of tying. The Rite Bobbin, however, is constructed like a fly reel with an adjustable drag knob on the side. Every time I switch threads, all I need to do is adjust the knob and pull the thread until I achieve the mild to medium tension I’m looking for. I honestly haven’t snapped a thread since I bought my first Rite Bobbin four years ago.

Rotary Whip Finish

While a whip finish can be done by hand, a rotary tool will do the job much quicker and easier after watching a 30 second YouTube video on how to use it. To this day I still don’t know how to use a standard whip finish tool and up until about five years ago when I took the time to learn the ways of the rotary tool, I was whip finishing every fly by hand. Never again, though; rotary whip finish all the way.

Small Hackle Pliers

As someone who doesn’t tie or fish dries often, I rarely use hackle pliers for their intended purpose, but they do come in handy in other ways. Aside from wrapping beaded pheasant tail nymphs with Hungarian Partridge (my soft hackle of choice), I mostly use my small narrow hackle pliers to hold materials in place and out of the way while I tie in or wrap other materials and I almost exclusively use my plastic hackle pliers to hold hooks for snagging beads.

Lead-free Wire

Though I use both brass and tungsten beads for various patterns and situations, I absolutely will not use nymphs with tungsten beads on small mountain streams. Too often my fly will snag or drag on the bottom within seconds of hitting the water. Because of its density, tungsten dives down in a way that I don’t need or want on those tiny creeks. I find that nymphs with brass beads and a few wraps (5-7) of lead-free wire around the hook shank help me achieve the exact weight I’m looking for to fish bigger nymphs with a natural drift in depths between 6-inches and 3-feet without dragging bottom or snagging every other drift. For nymphs I typically use .015” and for streamers I use .025” to .030” to add extra weight to tungsten cones and barbell eyes.

Old Scissors

Worn finish, dull,
broken at the point,
but perfect for the job.

When cutting wire, whether it be thin wire to create segmentation in a nymph or thicker lead-free wire to wrap around the bare hook shank to add weight to a nymph or streamer, it’s best not to use good scissors. When cutting wire off of the spool or when finishing a lead-free wire wrap on the shank, some anglers use a small wire cutter tool, but I like something that creates a more precise cut. A few years ago while transferring supplies between rooms I dropped one of my nicer but slightly worn pairs of fly tying scissors point-down on my tile kitchen floor and completely mangled them. From that moment on they became my wire scissors and have been perfect for the job. Therefore, dedicating an older pair of scissors or just marking a pair only for use with wire will help with precise cuts and save nicer pairs from premature wear.

In some instances scissors aren’t necessary at all. When finishing a wire wrap on a fly it’s always best to do a few wraps of thread on either side of the wire to secure it, then helicopter the tag until it breaks on its own at the tension point to prevent having an exposed tag on the fly. Check out Tim Flagler’s YouTube videos (tightlinevideo) for info on this technique.

UV Light and Resin

A perdigon tied on a jig hook has been my go-to, slump-busting, Euro nymphing dropper in 2021 and a UV light/resin pairing is essential to tying that pattern. With the perdigon, the tungsten slotted bead helps get it down quickly, but the smooth, streamlined resin body is what cuts right through fast water, making it an invaluable fly for nymphing riffles.

UV resin also comes in handy for purposes such as creating a solid wing casing on a hare’s ear nymph or the hard back of a scud or caddis larva. It can be used in a number of applications for streamers as well. When I first started tying, especially when tying saltwater flies, five-minute epoxy was the best way to get that hard, clear coating on a fly, but the process was time-consuming and the epoxy would turn yellow from use far too quickly; UV resin solves both of those problems. As for what type of resin to use, for nymphs I like Loon Thin resin and for every other freshwater application I use Solarez Thin-Hard, which I find to be slightly thicker than the Loon Thin.

Aside from tying flies, I use the UV light and resin for other fly fishing purposes. The light comes in handy to cure UV Aquaseal when patching my waders. However, be careful not to hit the Aquaseal with too strong a UV beam because I’ve found that it will heat up and smoke, so apply the beam softly and slowly. I also apply a thin coat of resin when I repair nicks in my fly line. First, I use Zap-A-Gap to glue and seal the nick and then I coat it lightly with resin to finish it off.

Dubbing Wax

Dubbing comes in an infinite variety of blends and is used on many nymph, dry, and streamer patterns. When applying it to thread in a nice tapered noodle, the application of the varying blends can range in difficulty from mild to impossible without the aid of dubbing wax, the great leveller. For instance, UV ice dub alone is nearly impossible to spin, but with wax it’s a breeze and almost as easy as hare’s ear dubbing, which spins smoothly without any assistance.

When I first starting tying, the only wax I had was a rock-hard chunk that came in a fly tying kit. When I rubbed it onto the thread, none was left behind to help me create a dubbing noodle. Strangely, the thought of heating it never entered my mind and for a while I gave up and applied my dubbing without any wax. Years later I picked up Wapsi dubbing wax (pictured to the right) and the ease of using the softer wax made me realize what I had been missing in the way of time saved and in the improved quality of my flies.

The technique I prefer for application is to rub wax on the thread a few times along the space where I want to create the noodle, then rub my fingers on the thread to coat them. I’ve found that coating my fingers is more important than coating the thread, but just sticking a thumb in the wax can get messy.

Forceps

Every responsible angler carries a pair of forceps and though trout are hooked corner jaw the vast majority of times, it’s always good to have them just in case they’re needed. However, the most useful application for forceps: CRIMPING BARBS. I challenge everyone reading this to go barbless.

I’ve been fishing barbless for trout for over four years and I’ll never go back. It's forced me to be a better angler in that the majority of fish I’ve lost have been because of a mistake made by me. Fewer mistakes means fewer lost fish; it’s just simple math. The real reason to fish barbless, though, is the ease of hook removal and the reduction of scarring (or worse) for the fish. Most of the time my fly falls out while the trout is swimming in the net and when it doesn’t come out on its own, all it takes is a little push on the bead or the hook eye with my index finger. Seriously, go barbless.

My Essential Fly Tying Materials

Below is a list of my most frequently used materials with a brief explanation of the use for each, but it doesn’t even scratch the surface of the total list of supplies I use and the multitude of patterns for which the listed materials come in handy; this is simply to help beginning tyers get started. Also, If you've read my post on confidence flies, I’m fairly certain that every material needed for those patterns is included.

As always, feel free to reach out with any questions about this post or any other.

Feathers & Herl

-Pheasant Tail (natural, olive, yellow) for tailing and body of numerous nymph patterns

-Hungarian Partridge (natural) for soft hackle nymphs

-Coq De Leon (barred speckled) for perdigon tailing fibers and various other jig nymphs

-Peacock Herl (green, blue, orange) for nymph collars

Hair

-Elk Hair (bleached) for the wing of olive x-caddis and elk hair caddis

-Rabbit Strips (dark olive, black, olive, brown, natural) for larger slump-busters and other rabbit hair streamers

-Pine Squirrel Strips (dark olive, black, olive, brown, natural) for small slump-busters and leeches

-Bucktail (white, olive) for Clousers used for striped bass

Dubbing

-Spectrablend Nymph Dubbing (every color) for collar and body for a number of nymphs, body of olive x-caddis 

-UV Ice Dub (mostly caddis green, gray, black, but also others) for flashier collar and body of nymphs (ice dub caddis larva is a favorite)

-SLF Squirrel Dubbing (rusty brown, dark olive) for nymph thoraxes

-Sow Scud Dubbing (light olive, orange, gray) for scud body and legs

-Dry Fly Dubbing (gray, light olive) for RS2 body, WD-40 thorax

Synthetic

-Chenille (fine-med. size in plain or variegated ginger, black, olive, brown) for girdle bugs

-Grizzly Barred Rubber Legs (med. in natural, tan, olive, white) for girdle bugs

-Stonefly Chenille (black/beige, black/ginger, black/coffee) for smaller girdle bugs in 12-14

-MFC Barred Sexi-Floss (yellow small) for smaller girdle bugs in 12-14

-Thin Skin (clear/black specks) for scud backs

-Antron Yarn (brown, olive, white) mostly for nymph bodies and x-caddis tail

-Sparkle Braid (peacock, olive, copper, pearl) for a flashy streamer underbody

-Uni-Mylar Double-Sided Tinsel (12-16, peacock) for perdigon body

-Ultra Wire (size sm-brassie, silver, gold, copper, chartreuse, green, mustard) for ribbing and segmentation of numerous nymph patterns

-Veevus Holographic Tinsel (size sm-med., chartreuse, red, purple, green, black, silver) for leach underbody and experimenting with Perdigons and other jig nymph patterns

Beads & Cones

-Brass Beads (2.0-2.8mm in gold, black nickel, black, silver) for numerous nymph patterns

-Tungsten Slotted Beads (2.8mm-3.8mm in gold, black nickel, silver, copper) for numerous jig nymph patterns

-Tungsten Slotted Beads (3.2mm-4mm in gold, black nickel) for jig streamers

-Tungsten Cone Heads (sm-l in black nickel, black, gold) for numerous streamer and micro streamer patterns

-Barbell Eyes (l-xl in chrome, yellow, chartreuse, red) for Clouser minnows used in saltwater for striped bass

Thread

-Danville’s Flymaster 6/0 (olive, black, Adam’s gray, brown, fl. fire orange) for nymphs, dries, streamers

-Danville’s Flymaster 3/0 (black, olive) for streamers

-Danville Fine Monofilament Thread- for saltwater flies

-UTC 70D (black, olive, red, yellow, chartreuse, rusty brown) for nymphs and dries

-Uni-Thread 8/0 (olive dun) for nymphs and dries, a favorite for my olive thread Frenchies

-Veevus- 12/0 (black, olive, brown, fl green) for jig nymphs and small dries

-Veevus- 14/0 (orange, red) for collars and hot spots

Hooks

-4X Streamer Hook- Mustad or Daiichi (8-14) for girdle bugs

-3X Streamer hook- Mustad (12) for micro strreamers

-Bead Head Nymph Hook- Orvis (12) for small stream soft hackle pheasant tails

-Curved Straight-Eye Long Shank Nymph Hooks- Orvis or Dai-Riki (12-18) for numerous nymphs

-Emerger Hooks- Dai-Riki or Orvis (14-22) for caddis larva and midges

-Jig Nymph Hooks- Hanak or Orvis (12-20) for numerous jig nymphs

-Standard Dry Fly Hooks- Dai-Riki (12-22) for numerous dries

-Ahrex Trout Predator Light Streamer or Gamakatsu Stinger (1/0-4) for numerous streamers