RE: Fly Patterns/ How to tie
2008/04/15 23:20:03
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Put Charlie's Fly Box in your browser. It's a Western site (Western U.S., not Western PA), but many of the patterns are effective here in the East (or will be given another year or three). CFB has the best tutorials I know of on the Web.
Closer to home, visit Buckeye United Fly Fishers > fly tying. Also has very good tutorials and features flies that prolly look familiar to the Western Pa angler.
IMHO, it's good for beginners to start off with, oh, ten standard patterns that are: a) effective and b) let you practice the basic steps of tying. If you tie a parachute Adams, for example, you can follow a tutorial and compare the proportions of your fly to the fly in the tutorials. Once you can tie one parachute, you can tie most any parachute or whatever. Later, you can add your own variations.
I've found the problem with free lancing as a beginner is that you don't have benchmarks to refer to and, usually, no one to share (mis)information with.
But that's JMHO.