Fly tying- new flies, new ideas, What flies?

[Korrie]

How do you decide what flies to have in your fly boxes?
How do you decide what flies to tie?
Do you look in the SBS thread for ideas?
Or maybe a fly swap on FT?
Or do you look in your fishing friends' fly boxes when you go fishing?
Do you turn over rocks in the rivers and copy what you find on the stones?
Are you an avid fly fishing magazine reader and get ideas from the magazines?
Maybe a friend tells you what to have in your fly box?
Or maybe you are a flyfishing bookacholic?
Or websites you main source of ideas and inspiration?
Maybe your local fly shop?

[AB1]

Korrie

These are all hard questions you are asking. It is the part of my fishing at the moment that I'm struggling with the second most, my biggest problem is keeping contact with my flies.

I do have a couple of go to flies, tried and tested and must have at least three of them for every trip.

The internet is my main source of inspiration and youtube tying videos help with the easiest way to get my idea in to a workable easy to tie fly.

[gkieser]

Tie as much as possible. Just like evolution, new stuff comes naturally from making old stuff.

[BenzoV]

Tie as much as possible. Just like evolution, new stuff comes naturally from making old stuff.

Ja, but no-one has millions of years to get their flybox in order. Some intelligent design is needed for most of us.

I would say books and the internet for me, although I don't spend as much time on flies as I probably should.

[MCC]

American fly design is pretty boring and really not that creative. The problem is that most books and even internet sources focus almost entirely on American patterns.

Soooo..... There is a Facebook group called Fly Tying which was actually started by a South African guy Chris Labuschagne. There are a very big group of East Europeans who contribute to this page and some of their designs are exceptionally good.

I'll get the spelling badly wrong but go and look at Sasa Stoic and Gjorsi Zolti.

Brilliant nymps by the latter and even better dries by the former.

[Korrie]

The French, East Europeans and a couple Russians are the most innovative and creative, when it comes to fly tying.

[Ko7Ad]

I get most of my inspiration from the web, but I have found that some flies you find are all for show and not really a practical fishing pattern. So it’s often difficult to focus on flies that are the best for your box and skip the gimmicks. This is mainly an issue with saltwater flies for me as most flies are designed for completly different conditions than we encounter here on our coast. I can’t comment too much on the freshwater side as I only tie the basics to get me by.

Having a peek into someone’s fly box is one of my best ways to find a gem to add to the collection as you always get the opportunity to find out how it performs and what its design and fishing limitations are before tying up the same. It’s info that is not readily shared on the internet that saves you a lot of time experimenting.

[Korrie]

Good Russian/Bulgarian site
http://www.lurebg.com/FlyFishing/flyfishing.htm
Good French site
http://www.jpdessaigne.com/

[Korrie]

A couple of good books, that has given me lots of inspiration
Secret flies of the Czech and Slovak flyfishers.
The have a large number of some of the best competition fly fishers, sharing their flies.

The worlds best trout flies. John Roberts
Featuring 30 well know fly fishers/tyers form all over the world, each listing his top 6 flies and why it is and how to tie etc.

Tying emergers. Shcolmeyer and Leeson.
Featuring lots of emerging patterns from many different fly tyers, also a good fly tying guide.

[Korrie]

Another Italian that have provided good inspiration is Agostino Roncallo
I have 2 of his books, will look up the names and post it