What is a good book for a beginner or intermediate tier? Thanks
the best tying book right now for a beginner is charlie cravens new book “basic fly tying”
http://www.charliesflyboxinc.com/flybox/detail.cfm?parentID=167
I am self taught at fly tying. I started with one of Skip Morris’s books “Fly Tying Made Clear and Simple” (here). I thought it did a great job giving me the basics and is excellent for starting out.
My go to book now is “The Benchside Introduction to Fly Tying” (here). You really have to see this book to see how cool it is. The pages are split in half, the top section is all the fly patterns, and the bottom half are the techniques. It has been a very helpful book for me.
The next book I am going to purchase is “The Fly Tier’s Benchside Reference” (here).
Hope that helps, and I am interested to see what books others recommend. There is always another good book.
Normand has a larger fly tying library than all of the libraries in my state so I will defer to his thoughts on books. I haven’t seen the new Charlie Craven book yet, but I will now have to keep an eye out for it. I can recomend the Benchside Introduction to Fly Tying though. Schollmeyer did a grand job on that one. Shop around for pricing on that one though since I have seen it go from $27 to $45 for the same book. Think Ebay.
I really liked this one:
Fly Tying For Beginners: How to Tie 50 Failsafe Flies
There are a lot of good beginner books. I don’t think I’ve found one that I would call “bad”. I also like “The Benchside Introduction to Fly Tying” although there is a lot of overlap between the two.
Once you get the basics down I do have a favorite non-beginner book.
Essential Trout Flies by Dave Hughes. For each fly he shows a 6 photo step by step process for tying the fly, then he gives 6 recipe variations. So once you know how to ty one fly you really learn how to tie 7.
Terry
The best tying book free for a beginner is right here on the site!!! On the left side of the screen click fly tying, when the next screen comes up click on Beginning Tying and there you go. You can print out each and every lesson and put them in a binder or just keep referring back to them on-line. Great course and you progress from one lesson to the next and can build a great box of flies as you do it.
When done with the beginning move on to the intermediate, then the advanced.
I have the Benchside Reference and it’s a great book if you’re looking for help in certain areas of tying. Skip Morri’s book is also good and IMO I like the book Fly Tying by Helen Shaw, used to sign that book out of my public libarary all the time, it’s older but she does a great job of teaching.
Fatman
I’d add Production FlyTying by A.K. Best. Wish I had it when I started tying, a lot of chickens and rabbits would not have given their lives in vain.
Regards,
Scott
What fish are you going to be chasing?
If it’s trout, I’d agree with Norman, Charlie Craven’s book has set the new standard. He goes into incredible detail, excellent photos and there’s a lot of great tips for beginner and intermediate fly tyers. If you want to get a feel for the kind of detail he goes into, check out his website www.charliesflybox.com and browse through some of the fly tutorials.
For many years Skip Morris’s book “Fly Tying Made Clear and Simple” and the Peter Gathercole’s “50 Fail Safe Flies” were “the standards”, with more of an emphasis on traditional patterns.
As tlerm mentioned there are 2 Benchside books.
“The Benchside Intro to Tying” has a unique format with pages cut in half. Pattern ingredients on the top half of the book and instructions for techniques on the bottom half and the idea is that you can flip the bottom half to see how to do different fly tying techniques-- in theory it sounds good. In practice it gets a little cumbersome.
“The Benchside Reference” is a great resource for intermediate and advanced tyers. It doesn’t cover patterns, but goes into detail on how to do specific techniques-- so 30 different ways to dub a body, how to make a dubbing brush, several ways to split dry fly tails, how to marry a wet fly wing, etc.
And David Hughes has some great books including “Essential Trout Flies” and “Trout Flies” (a larger, more expensive book that “Essential” is excerpted from) that would be great for an intermediate tyer that has mastered the basics. It assumes you know how to do stuff like tie on, whip finish, dub thread and secure materials in a pinch loop etc, and uses that knowledge to walk you through tying a variety of different “styles” of flies with suggested dressings and “how to” step by steps for tying. It’s a great resource, and he’s an excellent writer.
If you’re chasing other stuff there are other beginner/intermediate books with a focus on tying bass panfish or saltwater flies etc.
Good luck.
mark
in addition to charlie cravens new book, i would also recommend “the fly tyers benchside reference” book by leeson and schollmeyer.
master the techniques and you can master any recipe.
Hi Terry,
I would assume that you are interested in trout, and maybe brim & bass since you list Central NY as your residence. There are so many good books out there it is hard to select just one. For a general fly-tying book, I like the big, hard-cover Orvis Fly Tying Guide because of its large, step-by-step pictures. There are also a lot of specialty books that are very good to learn about a particular type of fly. Randal Kaufmann and Skip Morris each have excellent books on Tying Nymphs and another book on tying Dry Flies. I particularly like Jay Nichols book on Tying Dry Flies and David Hughes book on Nymphs for Streams and Stillwater. Most of the new books are so picture rich that it’s hard to go wrong with any of them. 8T 
Scary stuff…in that “most” folks learn hand crafts by being shown and doing themselves…most, I say though, many, many learn by book.
Much like “learning” to cook…the best book will not always produce the best result.
X2 
Back in 1998 I started Al Campbell’s Fly Tying Series, here on FAOL. Al Campbell did not just teach how to dress a given fly pattern, he also was teaching techniques, that you would be using for other patterns. Amato Publishing was interested in publishing his series, but it never came to fruition.
THE BEGINNERS SECTION: 20 lessons!
Part 1 Welcome to Beginning Fly Tying
Part 2 The Hook
Part 3 The Fly Vise
Part 4 Tying Tools
Part 5 Matarelli-style Whip Finishers
Part 6 Thompson style whip finisher
Part 7 The EZ-Nymph
Part 8 Fall Midge Emerger
Part 9 SHWAPF
Part 10 Tailwater and Spring Creek Favorites
Part 11 All Time Favorites - Hare?s Ear and Pheasant Tail
Part 12 Hackle and the Woolly Worm
Part 13 Woolly Bugger and Montana Nymph
Part 14 Marabou Damsel Nymph
Part 15 The Basic Dry Fly
Part 16 Split Tails, Wings and Thorax Flies
Part 17 Turkey Flats and Hackle Tip Wings
Part 18 The Adams
Part 19 Royal Wulff
Part 20 The Humpy
THE INTERMEDIATE SECTION: has 32 lessons!
Part 21 Parachute Adams
Part 22 Paradrake
Part 23 Extended Body Damselfly
Part 24 Elk Hair Caddis
Part 25 The Stimulator
Part 26 Sparkle Caddis Emerger
Part 27 CDC Flies
Part 28 Hare Wing Flies
Part 29 Comparadun / Sparkle Dun
Part 30 Al’s Hopper
Part 31 Dave’s Hopper
Part 32 Henry’s Fork Hopper
Part 33 The Muddler Minnow
Part 34 Simple Deer Hair Bass Bug
Part 35 Standard Deer Hair Bass Bug
Part 36 Diving Bug
Part 37 Stacked Hair Diver
Part 38 Deer Hair Perch
Part 39 Poppers
Part 40 Wiggle Frog
Part 41 Al’s Crayfish
Part 42 Foam Flies
Part 43 Clouser Minnow
Part 44 Hair Mouse
Part 45 Epoxy Head Minnow
Part 46 Mega-Minner
Part 47 Simple Streamers
Part 48 Simple Wet Flies
Part 49 Flesh Flies
Part 50 Poor Man’s Spey
Part 51 Tequila Sunrise (Salmon Fly)
Part 52 Al’s Salmon Fly
THE ADVANCE SECTION: has 8 lessons
Part 53 Tiger Weave Bitch Creek Nymph
Part 54 Hook Weave EZ Stone
Part 55 Woven Hackle Flies
Part 56 Granny Weave Stonefly
Part 56 Virtual Stonefly
Part 57 Al’s Lace Caddis Pupa
Part 58 Al’s Flash-Pan Crayfish
Part 59 Al’s Diver
I cannot think of a better person to teach you how to dress hooks, and learn fly tying techniques, as well as learning to properly dress fly patterns ~Parnelli
Try EVERY one you can find at your local library…for FREE!
My local library is part of an 80+library state wide (Ohio) library consortium. All the catalogs are combined into one big catalog on-line. If any one library has an item, it shows up in the catalog from my local library. When I reserve something, they ship it to my local library. If it’s available, I usually get an item within 3 or 4 days. This goes for all library material that can be checked out. Books, DVD’s, VHS, CD’s etc. Over the years I’ve checked out dozens and dozens of various fly tying books and every video and DVD on fly tying available. This was how I was able to watch most of the entire original Hooked On Fly Tying: series From Bennett?Watts (excellent videos by the way and now re-released in HD DVD)
Just about every library these days is part of an Inter-Library-Loan system. If they don’t have something you’re looking for, they will try to find it for you. I tried to get a Geirach book one time that was not in the system. I asked if they could get it and about 2 weeks later they called and said it was in. They bought it from Amazon for me to read, and when I was done with it, they just added it to their inventory. How cool is that??? I don’t mind waiting if it’s free!
If nothing else it’s a great “try before buy”. Most of the newer books (published in the last 5 years or so) all have high quality digital color photos, whereas many older books have low resolution black and white photos. When I flip thru books in the book store I usually put them right back on the shelf if they have black and white photos of tying sequences.
Incidentally, hypothetically speaking of course, videos and DVD’s could be copied if one was to cross over to the dark side. But none of us would do that, right?
I’d have to agree with the Craven book guys. I’ve read it and it’s a great book for a beginner, very concise info.
Beaver
Thanks guys for the help. I ordered The Cravens book.
I have used the info on this site a few times, I just wanted something i could have at my bench with me.
You get much so more by seeing a fly tied then by just reading about it and looking at the pictures in a book. Once you can imitate the techniques demonstrated you can tie any of the recipes in a book. If you can?t watch in person at a TU, FFF meeting or fly fishing show there a quite a few good DVD?s you can buy. I recommend all the fly tying videos made by A.K. Best, and his fly tying books are excellent too.
John
Terry -
Check your PMs.
John
I second (or third) the suggestion to save money by using this site, an Charlie’s fly box, as well as the local library. Then go out an buy books showing flies you are interested in (but chances are…they are online too.)
Alternatively, you could make your own binder by using your printer?!?
Al Campbell’s series here on FAOL are excellent. Charlies book is the most detailed beginners book I ever found. I bought mine through Charlie. Contacted him and asked if he please autograph it. Charlie was more than happy to do so. Skip Morris book/video on Fly Tying Made Clear and Simple is another excellent one to consider.