Northern NH Fly Fishing: My Fly Tying Journey Begins

After many years of buying flies for fishing I decided to learn how to tie my own in January 2016.

I attempted to take a tying class, to get started properly, but after my initial inquiry, and being told I'd hear back, weeks went by and I heard nothing more from the instructor. So, I taught myself by watching online videos generously shared by knowledgeable tyers.

1) The most influential has been Tim Flagler of Tight Line Productions. https://www.youtube.com/user/tightlinevideo
He and Matt Grobert of http://www.caddischronicles.com/ both tie for the Tight Line Productions videos. They're very clever in the way they make you a better tyer by subtly sneaking lots of best practices into their high quality tying videos. I've picked up countless tricks and procedures to make things easier and the flies better.

2) Jim Misiura. Jim's massive series of "Fly tying for beginners" videos has been very valuable as I try to expand the number of arrows in my ever-growing fly tying quiver. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChBe08TywiYfR5M_3P2dBig

3) Davie McPhail. Davie has a very natural seeming ability to tie beautiful flies, and explains things as he goes in a very pleasant manner. He has single handedly enabled me to figure out how to properly tie in classic wet fly wings. https://www.youtube.com/user/DavieMcPhail

4) Tim at Trout and Feather. Tim's instructional video are numerous and he does a particularly good job of explaining why he's doing certain things in the tying process, as well as his thought process on modifying flies for various situations. http://www.troutandfeather.com/fly-tying-videos/

5) Rounding out the most influential 5 is Hans Weilenmann. I have very much benefitted from Hans' minimalist approach to tying. No thread wrap is wasted and everything is very tidy.
https://www.youtube.com/user/HansWeilenmann

There have been others, but these five have been my primary educators in fly tying. Thank you gentlemen. :)

Since beginning fly tying a mere half year ago I've tied well over 2,000 flies, and I've sold nearly 100 dozen of some of my favorite nymphs, dries, streamers and wooly buggers in online auctions. Viewable here: http://www.ebay.com/sch/milleroutdoors1/m.html

The real fun in tying flies is developing your own patterns and tweaking popular patterns to work better. I plan on publishing a few of my creations in the not-too-distant future in an effort to give a bit back and pay the knowledge sharing, that I've so benefited from, forward. So stay tuned. :)

A few of the flies I've tied...