Proportion in Fly Tying for Beginners

[fidfish]

I'm not looking to start any wars here.

I would only like to encourage any beginners who were recently put off posting their flies on this forum due to some "disagreements" on some threads. This is an excellent forum for learning and improving your fly tying techniques by posting your flies and receiving some feedback and also learning from the flies that the more experienced tiers post.

Having said that you will have noticed that opinions vary as to how certain things are done and that is fine, as Wayne Luallen says "It's my fly and I'll tie it as I like". So keep that in mind when you tie but just be aware that there are options. Also I'm sure Mr Headly will keep us right on classic wet fly tying rules.

One such is in tying in tippetts. I'll ignore all the recent barbed and catty comments made on various other posts (although some were quite funny) re the tying in of tippetts and try to present my case logically.

When you tie a wet fly you do not just pick any hackle off the cape and whap it on hoping that the size and length is just right and if its not then so what. You do not just whack off the first jungle cock feathers regardless of size and slap them on the hook in the hope that they look the right size and matched. No, you take care in choosing the right hackle for the size of the hook and the pattern you are tying, you choose a matched pair of the correct sized jungle cock eyes and tie them in carefully so that they are aligned, etc. etc. So why would you not do the same for the tail, especially a tippett tail. Yes, tippetts come in various sizes just like all natural fly tying materials but part of the art is in choosing the right one for the job. For tippetts you should choose a feather where the coloured section i.e. the part between the black bands is the length of the hook shank. Tie the tippetts in at the edge of the black band so that it shows at the end of the hook. If you fish competitions you will find that this method also keeps the fly within International fly limits.

Make up your own minds!!

Kenny

[bill1]

Kenny,
You raise a good point about beginners. However-
where somebody states that they are a beginner or improver, just about all comments are constructive and positive, sometimes to the point of being unhelpful.
Where the tyer is of a high standard, the comments again are usually appreciative and good natured.

It is a shame that more intermediate tyers don't post their flies, just for the pleasure of "look what I did, what do you reckon?". This kind of tyer usually knows where the fly can be improved and can take a bit of stick.
However, given how pressed we all are with time to browse through lots of run of the mill offerings, perhaps it is a good thing that the majority of posts with pictures of flies are of

beginners/improvers looking for crits and encouragement
New patterns
Top quality tying.

(I missed the catty comments on tippets - must check it out)

[fortbhoy]

the people who post the catty comments are the ones who are to scared to post there own flies. they claim the they cant or dont know how but the is a easy instruction thread on the photo forum. if i can do it anyone can

it would be nice if they could back up there comments with pics of there own flies. i love seeing other peoples flies and different techniques the use.
i have learned a lot from other peoples flies on here, stealing ideas for my own flies.

[denzil3009]

Originally Posted by fortbhoy

i love seeing other peoples flies and different techniques the use.
i have learned a lot from other peoples flies on here, stealing ideas for my own flies.

I shamelessly do this all the time :P

[dabhoy]

I enjoy seeing the beginners flies and if I can help I will even though there are far more experienced and knowledgable tyers on here.
When tying certain know flies it is best to try and achieve the standard proportions at first and then you may wish to evolve the flies for your own preferences.
For instance I tie a bog standard teal blue and silver but to suit me I experimented with the wing and found that a longer wing to the length of the tail seemed to work better for me so that is how I now tie it.