Saturday, May 4th, from 1:00 - 5:00
Fletcher Library, 823 North Buchanan St, Little Rock, AR. 72205
You can join the waitlist for this & future iterations of this clinic HERE
Tying up a good-looking box of flies is something that seems impossible to many people when they first attempt it. They’ll invest in a vise and a set of tools, buy a few materials to tie their favorite flies, then quickly get discouraged when they realize it’s not as easy as it looked when they watched experienced tyers doing it on a YouTube video.
The AFF Basic Skills Class is designed to focus on the basic skills needed to tie virtually any fly pattern you want, rather than a few simple patterns. It’s been our experience over the years that when you’ve taken the time to master just a few basic techniques, you’ll get more enjoyment out of your tying time and produce better quality flies, because it becomes much easier when you’re not constantly trying to figure out how to do this or that.
Each class is limited to four participants to ensure that everyone gets one-on-one, hands-on instruction. We can also furnish a vise and tools for those who just want to see if tying their own flies is something they’d like to do before investing any money in it.
The first area we’ll concentrate on is thread control. Thread control is THE most important skill to master because it’s what holds the fly together. Thread is both a material and a tool, and if you don’t have good basic thread control skills, it’s almost impossible to consistently tie good quality flies.
We’ll go over the different types of thread and different kinds of bobbins. You’ll learn about different knots, proper tension, how to attach different materials to the hook in different ways, and how to manipulate the materials as they’re being attached to the hook.
The second area we’ll go into is dubbing. Applying dubbing to the thread to wrap around the hook to form a fly body is one of those basic skills so many tyers never seem to get right, but it doesn’t have that way.
We’ll go over the characteristics of many different types of dubbing from synthetics to furs, and how to properly get them on the thread to wrap around the hook shank. It’s not as hard as it sometimes seems when you know the basic techniques. We’ll also cover a few advanced techniques like dubbing loops to widen your scope of what you’ll be able to do with this important material used in almost all trout and panfish flies.
Feathers are also found on almost every fly, so the next area of our focus will be on the nearly endless selection of feathers available to us as tyers. From dry flies, wet flies, streamers and nymphs, feathers are used in just about all of them. Which ones you use and how you attach them to the hook determines how well the fly will look and how effective it will be in the water.
Lastly, we’ll put everything together to tie a classic fly pattern that everyone’s heard of, and everyone uses, but not everyone can tie well. You’ll be surprised how good yours will look when you know the basics!