How did you get interested in Tying?

What started your love affair with tying? For me it was this lure. About this time last year, I was outside piddling around and picked up a small pecan branch. I pulled out my pocket knife and started whittling and I was hooked!

I got into tying simply to supply myself with flies, as I had just taken the plunge into fly fishing.

That is a unique popper. Bet it would catch a fish or 2. I picked up a chunk of would once and could see a fish in it. Spent several hours whittling and sanding and finally just put a coat of stain on it. Don't have a pic of it.... think my daughter still has it somewhere in here room though.

There are some older threads that talk about when members got started into this money pit of an addiction.........

- How and why did you get started tying jigs

- Thankyou Jigcraft.com

Got something similar too - wonder if there is a connection.... Cool bait.

Got into tying/pouring out of necessity - mid 80s there wasn't a lot of ultra light jig options.... Wish they had the internet then!!!

I got into tying because two old timers got out & their baits flat out worked on river smallies.

First guy was Phil Shaeffer who tied rabbit hair jigs w/ zonker tails & cross cut bodies. Talked to Phil one night after his house got slammed by a tornado and he stopped tying to pick up his life. Then talked to Stephen Flint (RIP) who endorsed Phil's jigs on the canadian boundary water lakes and his local NY lakes.

Shortly after that, Butch Neil's shop got robbed of everything. He never returned to the tying market & his stock in the marketplace was sparce. Butch tied with bucktail & silicon hair, and was able to copy his jigs.

The addiction really hit when I couldn't find quality hooks on jigs and I started pouring.

I started dabbling with fly tying/luremaking while in grade school ~1970. I bought a little fly tying kit at our local WoolCo store gor those that remember them.

Tack-L-Tyers of Evanston, Illinois. From the 1930s onward, this was among the best selling kits for the next four decades. This particular model, with the pictorial box, was used for 20 or more years.

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Not much money but sure was fun and caught fish and lost about everything I made but that was OK, Grab a chicken, pluck some feathers and make some more. That evolved into some spinners and some small spoons some carved crank baits etc, etc. Lost interest after college, had a fishing tackle buget and between work and fishing and chasing young ladies, no time for tackle making. A rainy afternoon was best spent with a companion. Then about 10 years ago got into Fall Walleye fishing and first time out, lost about a dozen blade baits, Did catch a limit though. Bought a Do-It mold, some blanks, hooks, snap rings etc and the rest is history. I now have better than 30 jig molds, 3 vices and still looking, boxes of materials and not enough hooks although I did buy 10,000 this spring, I never seem to have what I am looking for. BTW anyone have a good supply of Mustad 7790's in size 4,6,8 or know of a reasonably priced source?

Im a second generation tyer who's first job (at 7 yr old) was to wash n salt bucktails, stir the color pots to keep the bucktails dyeing even, and laying them out to dry. Around 12 I was good enough to cast heads for my father during the busy summer months and also assisted with counting, painting heads, and packaging. Now Im 48 and have been carrying on the family tradition since my father passed in 03. We stopped buying raw tails and dyeing them in the 80s - a good thing because there is no way the wife would allow that process in the house. Im still casting and painting everything I tie including our Barumba Head which is a family special. My sons and daughters all have been taught how to tie though right now none want to be attached to the vise like their old man.

Have been interested for a long time, but it took the availability of material thru the internet that made it happen. It is a long way from where I live to the nearest fly shop...

I started in 1968 when my local fishing club was able to rent a short stretch of the River Itchen, near where I lived in Southampton, UK. The Itchen being one of the classic chalk streams it would have been rude not to fly fish it for trout and grayling. I learned to fly fish and then joined a local fly tying class, which was run by Don Haynes, who ran a small class in his front room. Don was the founder of 'The Fly Dressers Guild', which is still going today and has members in many different countries.

I caught my first trout on a self tied black spider and have been tying 'on & off' ever since. I am proud to say that I have caught all my fish ever since on flies tied by me. If anybody gave me a fly I wouldn't use it but copy it!

I gave up fly fishing a few years ago but re-kindled my interest in fly tying last year when I start tying jig flies for lure fishing for perch and pike. Recently I bought a new Savage Gear LRF 6' 6" lure rod rated to cast 0 - 5grams (3/16th oz) so I could make and cast some of the lighter jig flies that you guys fish with.

David

i guess i started as a pre teen fishing jigs due to economics , because they were cheap, and the fact that a old man showed me that anything will bite a jig even when they snub almost everything , i started tying them due the fact that the most productive jig colors always stayed sold out all the time at the local tackle shop , not many people i knew fished jigs , but the ones who did bought all of them,until i started tying i thought the only colors jigs came in were , white , black , pink and chartreuse lol ,now my fav colors have shifted to gray's , brown's and olive's .

I started out pouring soft plastics. Then I started pouring jig heads to fish the plastics. Sometimes the barbs wouldn't come out. So i would melt off the lead and thrown the hook out ( didn't like reusing them). So I started tying to save hooks lol I like it it's fun and gives me something else to spend money on.

Started out tying (well trying!!LOL) small bucktail jigs for my Uncle and his friends. Once I got really good at it, it was taking up my fishing time. Late 80's I started making spinners and fly fishing but bought flies and then early 90's took the course on Fly Anglers On Line plus lessons at my local fly shop (good friends with him now).

Few years back was looking for something and saw my molds and poured up a bunch of heads and mixed up my fishing between fly rod and spinning rod.

Joined the board here and started messing with powder paint mixing and glitter and learned a bunch from everyone.

I have so much stuff I really don't need to buy anything but I still do. One thing I don't plan on getting into is pouring my own plastics!! Folks on here make great stuff and I just buy from them.

Learned how to dye feathers last year and added that to everything else

it kind of brings back the old days with me when I was a kid I carved out of a piece of wood a flatfish and painted it black I caught 2 bass at the same time on it we still have it today I made it when I was about 14 years old we are 68. I started tying jigs when I was 13 been tying him for over 50 some me odd years and where are still enjoying the hobby back when I was a kid we didn't have all the fancy stuff that we now have today we only found out simple lightheaded jig that I used and we just wrapped marabou nothing else and we caught lots of fish got a funny nowadays we got all the fancy feathers and everything else to use but it still nothing like the old days we would deftly cut up a crappie and put a piece of it on our jig.