What difference do premium fly fishing flies make to your day on the water? There are many fly fishing flies that advertise “Quality” or “Premium” but they are far from it. A premium dry fly will land right side up, float properly and consistently, and retain those properties even after catching 5.10, even 20 fish. On the other hand, poorly tied flies will often land on your stomach, side, or even on your head.
A premium trout fly at a fly shop is $1.50-$3.00, bass and surf flies $3.00-$5.00, but there are literally dozens of online retailers offering similar patterns for half that price. You can pay more for a premium fly at a fly shop, but research suggests the fly will last almost 10 times as long. You have to ask yourself a question: do I want a 2 fish fly or a 20 fish fly? Let’s examine some of the differences:
Materials
The first important material is the hackle. Great strides have been made in the last 60 years with hackles using premium levels of commercial flies. Flocks have been grouped based on color, hackle length, and quill stiffness to create a superior hackle.
It’s been a process that began with Harry Darbee in the 1940s and 1950s and continues today with hackles produced by Dr. Tom Whiting of Whiting Farms and Buck Metz of Metz Hackles, among others. Premium fly manufacturers such as Idylwilde Flies, Umpqua Feather Merchants, and Rainy use premium flies.
The second material of significant importance is the quality of the hook. Tiemco has established itself as the world leader in premium fly fishing hooks with creativity and attention to detail in the functional designs of its premium fly tying hooks. From trout to tarpon, in fresh or saltwater, to bass poppers or Micro Mayflies, the best fly makers choose Tiemco hooks over the best efforts of other competitors. They were one of the first manufacturers to chemically sharpen the tips and it is now standard throughout the industry. They carry a very extensive line of fly fishing hooks with around 46 models to choose from. At the end of the hook designation, you may see an “SP,” which stands for Specialty Point. SP hooks have a hollow curved point with triangulated edges for easy sharpening. The hooks also have a slow taper which helps make hook setting easier. An interesting aspect of this hook is that the basal end of the point has a swelling that functions as a barb without being a barb.
This can be of some advantage in attaching hook sets with barbless hooks. Another designation you may see is “TC,” which stands for Timeco Cut. This is a cut Tiemco uses on certain wet and streamer flies to improve hook penetration. “It’s all about quality, or lack thereof,” says Bruce Olson of Umpqua Feather Merchants. “The first problem is that the cheap imports are always tied on very cheap hooks, with odd sizes. It seems to me that a quality fly has to be tied on [name brand] hands. This becomes very important for larger game, such as tarpon, where sharpness and the tensile strength of the hook wire are vital.”
The fact that a discount fly company does not use premium materials means that the final product is not up to the mark. As Shawn Brillon, Orvis’ main fly buyer, says, “If you have to tie with scrap, often the end product is the same…scrap.”
Discount fly manufacturers also take shortcuts to reduce costs and materials. Bruce states, “To produce flies this cheap, these guys have to cut corners.” Discount fly companies use inferior hooks and materials, skip important tying steps (like putting a base of glue on the hook shank to hold the materials in place), and don’t exhibit much quality control.
patterns
A second important quality of premium fly fishing flies is adherence to standard pattern recipes. Bruce described a “Copper John” he bought online as missing the epoxy over the carapace and the lead under the thorax.
“So you may have saved a lot of money along the way, but you’re not a Copper John!” he says, noting that such an inferior version of the popular fly won’t perform on the water the way his designer intended. Without the lead it won’t sink properly and the lack of epoxy makes the fly much less durable.
Factories
Most fly production is done in third world countries because of the price, but also because they still work by hand. Although they are third world countries, fly farmers are well paid and earn middle class incomes for their work. The most expensive flies sold by premium fly shops like the Blue River Fly Company are tied in Thailand, the fly tying capital of the world. There are over a dozen major fly tying companies that have tying facilities there. Other areas of the world that produce significant numbers of flies include China, Sir Lanka, and Kenya. There is some production in Central and South America, Mexico, and the Philippines. Fly production in the United States and Europe, where the largest number of users are found, is mostly by domestic tiers or tiers that are tied to specific fly shops.
Many premium fly manufacturers, including Idylwilde, are strong believers in corporate social responsibility and believe in fair trade. They take responsibility for the impact their activities have on customers, employees, communities and the environment. As Idylwilde describes on his website: “If a fly is only worth $0.99, not only does it stink, but it was probably tied up in a third world sweatshop and we’d rather not have that bad mojo dangling from our conscience. Idylwilde fishes with fly flies are tied in Manila, Philippines, under a markedly progressive arrangement with Sister Christine Tan, a Catholic nun who believed her people needed more than charity: they needed honest, well-paying jobs they could rely on while building a life outside the world. confines of poverty. Our promise to Sister Christine continues some 12 years later, now allowing more than 150 levels to better support their families. The flies you see here are the work of their hands and their hopes.”
Fly Fishing Costs
The average cost of products for a premium fly maker for single dry flies and nymphs is around $4.50 – $5.50 per dozen. Additional shipping costs, taxes, and a US excise tax add an additional $1.00 per dozen.
The fly companies that import the flies need to make a profit, so the cost to the shops is usually trapezoidal (50% markup), so the cost to the shops is now $12.00 per dozen. The fly shop pays for shipping and increases operating costs and profit, key again, the cost to the consumer is increasing that $2-3 price you pay at a brick and mortar fly shop.
Big box stores, in order to drive prices down to what they do, either get deep volume discounts or buy flies that are tied somewhere other than Thailand, or both. Hopefully now when you are surprised when you walk into a fly shop you can understand why the shop is charging what it does.
cost per fish
Bruce Olson argues that anglers should consider the cost of a fly in relation to its durability. If the 75 cent Stimulator falls apart after the second fish, but the $1.75 Umpqua Stimulator is good for 10 fish, then the more expensive fly is twice as profitable. (75 divided by 2 fish = 37.5 cents per fish, 175 divided by 10 fish = 17.5 cents per fish). “You have to do the math,” says Olson.
Premium Fly Fishing Flies
He wouldn’t settle for rods, reels, fly lines, waders, etc. of inferior quality. that fall apart or break after a few times of fishing. Why settle for poor flies then? The flies are the most important part of fly fishing. If the end result of all this is fish, why not spend more time, money and energy on the one thing that really matters to fish?”
Price is a good indicator of the overall quality of the flies you buy. Cheap flies are almost always tied cheaply. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to do the math. You can also test them by making sure they don’t spin easily, are well designed for balance, are tied in the proper ratio, etc.
Umpqua, Idylwilde and Rainy have significantly raised the standards by which high-quality fishing flies are defined by using premium materials such as Tiemco, Metz and Whiting hackle hooks, and by developing the consummate skills of their production fly tyers.