production tying

[dborjas]

I used to do a fair amount of "production" tying. Every now and again I like to bang out a dozen or so under the clock to see how rusty I am. This dozen weighted bugger group was tied in under an hour. The trick is to sustain that pace for an 8hr day! Just having fun on a rainy day tying session!

[mer]

Better you than me Never done any production tying, I just tie for myself. But I've learned to "tie in sixes" so that I can develop a rhythm and consistency.

Takes a lot of flies to earn enough to go fishing. I have a lot of respect for people that do that.

[Perry Palin]

I can still tie 20 Trico spinners in an hour, but it's a simple pattern. Most of my trout flies are 8-12 per hour. I am not trying for speed. Speed is secondary to a well made durable fly.

The 8-12 per hour is for the first hour. Then I get up from the bench and do something else. When I tied for others, there were a few day when I tied 100 flies in a day. I was exhausted at the end of the day, it wasn't fun anymore, and I cut that out.

In the winter tying season I will tie two to five dozen of a pattern, trying for consistency. The result is lots of flies that I never have a chance to use.

[spundun]

They get pretty good looking after the first couple hundred..{lol}

spun dun

[Hankinsfly]

“Never have a chance to use.” I have that going on. Not really because I tie on a production volume, but my tying seems to get better every year. I look at a pattern I tied this year as opposed to the ones I tied last year, and this year’s just look much better. Then I end up tossing the ones from last year in a jar on my desk. Those flies caught fish just fine, but I just want my boxes to reflect my current tying.

The highlight of my tying in the last year has been parachute hackle and extended bodies. I tried and tried and tried, then one day it just clicked. For all I know, next year’s might be better still than this years ties and I have to toss another couple hundred.