Fly Tying Equipment for Fishing Lures

Series Summary

Modern fly fishing is centuries old and comes from Northern England and Scotland; however, the history of fly fishing be traced back more than 1800 years, to the mysterious Astraeus River in Macedonia. History records that Macedonian fishermen used to fasten feathers and wool to hooks to attract fish to their lines. Fly fisherman today continue the adventurous, yet relaxing, sport of fly fishing in some of the most beautiful and tranquil places on earth, casting their flies in the stream while listening to the call of a soft breeze through the aspens.

Fly tying is the craft of making an artificial fly that a fly fisherman can use to catch a fish. The artificial fly is connected to the fisherman’s line and is used to simulate a real fly or bug landing on the water surface. This entices the fish to come to the surface for a snack; and once the fish takes the bait, the fisherman has done his job.

In this free instructional video series on fly tying, learn how to tie your own fly fishing lures. Our expert angler will show you what basic fishing equipment and materials you’ll need to tie a wooly bugger fly. Then get step-by-step tips for setting up this lure, as well as how to attract fish using the physical features of the wooly fly. So add the wooly bugger to your tackle box and see if you don’t catch a few more fish next go round.

Video Transcript

"Hi! My name is David Dirks and I am managing director of Dirks Outdoors on behalf of Expert Village. Today we are going to learn how to tie the classic and highly effective wooly bugger. The wooly bugger has been around for a very long time and historically the research that you will do it will tell you the fly was originated in Pennsylvania by a fly tier down there late in the late 60's. But it depends on who you talk to as to exactly how it started but most fingers point to a fellow who originated it in the 1960's. It is one of the easiest flies to tie and also one of the most versatile because it represents a variety of different fruits. You will find that it can imitate stone flies, it can imitate a crustacean like a crayfish and again, it is a great fly and catches a lot of fish because there are a lot of different types of fruit for freshwater fish in the food chain. The basic tools and materials that you need to tie wooly bugger are pretty simple. You are going to need thread which is this 60 Uni- thread on a bobbin. This is a bobbin. Then you have a pair of sharp scissors. Every tier has a pair of those. A pair of hackle pliers and you also need a needle which allows you to apply the glue which will apply when we finish the fly off. In terms of materials, one of the things that you are going to need is to weight this fly. You can tie it unweighted but it is preferred and most popularly tied as a weighted fly. You can buy lead wire or wire in a variety of diameters. I happen to prefer using today 2.0. You can get it up to 3.0 in diameter and again, that is for larger hook size. Larger hook sizes are going to require larger diameter of wire. In the tools that we just mentioned, you will also need a good sturdy fly tying vice. "