Don't buy a fly tying kit.

While I really like to use tungsten on nymphs to get the flies down quickly, I’m less concerned about that on streamers where I am using cones 1 so I generally go with brass for this application. Also, at the time of this footnote tungsten is expensive and on the... [Read More]

Beads perform two functions: get the fly lower in the water (if not all the way to the bottom) and/or add some flash to the fly. For the Effective Fly Box, I use beads in a shiny color and in a dark color. For the shiny color, I prefer gold,... [Read More]

I have been able to get away with using only two kinds of dubbing for the patterns in the Effective Fly Box. One kind is sinky and spikey, the other is smooth and floaty. [Read More]