How to Tie a Whip Finish Knot: Basic Fly Tying Instructions

Video Transcript

" Hi, this is Robert Brown for Expert Village.com and in this video clip I am going to demonstrate whip finishing, the knot used to tie off the head of a fly. Now you use this knot whether it is a dry fly or wet fly like this little whooly bugger. One of the important skills to get down is while you are holding with your right the bobbin you want to be able to take three fingers; your thumb, your index finger and middle finger. You want to be able to pull the fibers back out of the way so you can work on the head of the fly. There are two ways to do this. One way is with one of these tools. This is a whip finishing tool. The other way is by hand. I am going to demonstrate first how to do it with the whip finishing tool. It is kind of work and coax all the fibers back so they are going to stay out of y our way for a second. You take your whip finishing tool and there is a little notch here that you put the thread in, then you raise the whip finishing tool and you allow it to spin just like I did. Now you pull your floss back along the side of your fly and you just wrap 3, 4 or 5 or how many you want, pull the loop off the bottom part of the tool and take that little hook tip and pull it out and just use this band to pull the thread tight so that you really tie off the knot. "