Very nice hackle.

[willowhead]

i think some tyers were simply taught (and convinced) that way, and got into a habit of doin' it, which they may find hard to break.....if, they are even conscious about it........the doin' and or the attempt to break the habit. Bulk, (in that sense) is not much of a problem when it comes to a fly you want to sink....more wraps, more water it soaks up.....easier to sink. And as far as trying to keep to the approximate size of the bugs themselves...........we couldn't even do that if all we threw at the fish was a bare hook.....so what's the diff? Virtually everything we throw at the fish is double, triple or larger than the size of the real bugs. Bulk, or the lack thereof (as an enemy), only matters when we tye dry flies imho.....for sillowett reasons and (avoiding it), to keep the fly from sinking. And look at the Wulff series of dry flies.........they pretty much all about bulk, and as attractors, replicate nothin' in nature.......little floatant, and you good to go............nuff said?
If you tye generally speakin', and most of the time manage to accomplish the "get 99% of the tinsle strength outta your wraps", i hardly see why all them half hitches are nessessary. Just slows you down.....not that i care bout that.....but think of the commerical tyer who needs to get things done NOW! He gonna loose money throwin' all those half hitches. If he can't tye a durable fly without wastin' all that time.....he should be a garbage collector.
i really think somma those guys just do it to show off. It does look kinna cool.....
i spose the better safe than sorry theroy can play into all of it, but to me it just seems so unessessary.

[redietz]

Here is a question about thread. After watching the video I was wondering how many of you half hitch everytime you add in a piece of material.

I stopped after acquiring a bobbin holder sometime in the 70's. Before that I half hitched after every step.

[willowhead]

WOW! thankx for turning on the light bulb reditez..... .....i spose that really is a DUH! when you stop and think of it. It all goes back to the days when folks didn't have any (or not enough), weight on the end of the thread. i've watched Mary Dette Clark tye like that a lot....without a bobbin holder. She has a clip at the edge of/on her table, that she sticks the thread into each time she needs to actually let completely go of it for whatever reason. Or sometimes, she'll simply attach a heavy hackle pliers to the thread and let it hang.

[redietz]

A thumbtack in the edge of the table works nicely, too. You still waste a lot of thread without the bobbin holder.

[willowhead]

OH Yeah!........the old thumbtack trick...............
if you ever get the chance to visit the Dette Fly Shop, i SURE hope you don't pass that up..........it's a glimps into almost 100 years of fly tying tradition................far as wasted thread goes..............Mary has her son wax it for her every winter......
the spools are HUGE!........100's of yards of thread...........not to mention she knows exactly how much to cutt off for any given fly...............waste is not an issue................for her.

[chase creek]

I seem to remember from "Tap's Tips" a long time ago, something about adding a half hitch after each material is tied in. He said he thought it made the fly more durable. Agreed, it does add more bulk to the fly, although it might have it's place with the bigger flies like saltwater or big bass flies.

[redietz]

OH Yeah!........the old thumbtack trick...............
if you ever get the chance to visit the Dette Fly Shop, i SURE hope you don't pass that up..........it's a glimps into almost 100 years of fly tying tradition................far as wasted thread goes..............Mary has her son wax it for her every winter......
the spools are HUGE!........100's of yards of thread...........not to mention she knows exactly how much to cutt off for any given fly...............waste is not an issue................for her.

The problem isn't so much not knowing how much to cut off, but that you need enough extra when you're finishing the fly to tie a whip finish.

[willowhead]

Very true redietz...........that aspect didn't pop into my head.............but i spose it's all relitive. Commercial tyers, (and Mary is one in terms of the number of flies she does annually), have to get things done with a time element involved as you know. Mary only tyes custome orders any more, (at $10 a fly), and it's been like that for a number of years, but i still sonsider her a commercial tyer.
When you watch Lefty Kreh tye in his videos.....it's amazing how much thread he waste breaking it off and throwing it away as he begins every single fly. To make that work and work the very first try every time, you have to have a good portion in your non-wraping hand, so that you can get the tension set just so and get it to break without much trouble, perfectly. It's very wastefull.........but it does save you picking up and butting down your scissors each and every time. Although then again, most commerical tyers keep their scissors in their wraping hand at all times...............who knows.
i do know that Mary buys her thread in such huge bulk, that she is definately not paying what we pay for thread. i go thru a darn good amount of Primrose or White (depending what they have in the shop or at a vendors booth), thread.....so i buy it by the case.....12 bobbins worth at a time. Very rarely ever pay more than a buck a bobbin.....sometimes as little as 50 cents each. White is prolly the best for dying, but i much prefere the Primrose for the fact that it's softer on the eye, and has less glare to bother you when your watching it flatten. And it dyes just fine.

[redietz]

You're right of course; from the perspective of a commercial tyer, it's better to waste a little thread than time. For a 12 year kid in 1964, whose only source of tying thread was mail order (or use sewing thread), the sight of six inches or so of thread going into the waste basket after every fly was like watching allowance money being burned a little at a time.

Ten or so years later, that same kid, now a struggling grad student was willing to splurge on a bobbin holder mainly because it would save thread.

Now, of course, I'll plop down serious money for a skin from which I only intend to take a few feathers.

[willowhead]

i remember when i first started tying. i'd save little piles of "stuff" everywhere.........tinsels, feathers, dubbing, foam, whatever........you name it, i saved it........i mean little itsy bitsy scraps........i finally got over that...........now that i'm in my 18th yr. tying........i look around and realize i couldn't use all the stuff i have if i lived three more lifetimes, and started tying at 6 yrs. old each time....... it's getting pretty rediculas to keep buying more............but you know how that goes.....