239 Flies DIY Kits... The Blog Post I Should've Written 3 Years Ago
Yeah, well, we've been busy. I feel like this has been written about 1500 times and sent as an instagram DM over the last few years. I guess global pandemics and national quarantines have a way of creating some free time for the little things you've been meaning to do for a while...
So for those of you who may not know, we do something a little special here at 239 Flies, and its not just say the F word a lot. I mean we do that... a lot, but we also offer this thing called a DIY kit. It's all the individual fly tying materials you need to tie a specific pattern in a specific color. All the ingredients, in one product if you will. We also have step by step instructions on how to tie them. Most have a video (shout out to the best in the biz LivIt films aka Patrick Rhea, my A1 since day 1) and the rest have a step by step picture series. Most kits yield 10-15 flies and its usually the eyes you'll run out of first. Kits don't include hooks, for many reasons.
So now that we're done with out awkward first date, lets talk about what you should tie. Some of these patterns are a huge pain in the ass. They look great, fish great, and you'll get mad reddit karma for sharing them, but if you're new to fly tying, stay the fuck away from redfish croutons, gangster crabs, and anything with deer hair. They're not asking 19 year old kids their first day at EMT school to perform brain surgery (Im not exaggerating, I know this first hand), so lets not do the fly tying equivalent of that by stacking and spinning fucking deer hair! Brushes are your friend, shrimp patterns are your friend, and synthetic materials will build nice flies and your confidence. I know we're all suckers for lists and efficiency, and we'd rather get to tying than read my grammar errors, so I'll start putting the list together below.
Recommended novice tyer kits:
Recommended intermediate kits:
Recommended advanced kits:
- Gangster Crab
- EP Minnow
- Deer Hair Kits (Deer hair is magical...get on this level)
Another very popular question I wish I had nickel for every time someone slid in my Dm's with is "what did Jenny from Forrest Gump actually have?" I have no fucking idea. Forrest said she got the cancer....but he admittedly was not a smart man. Also "Im fishing for ____ in ____, what kit should I tie up?" ...to the list machine!
Recommended Kits for the beach/dock lights: (Just to name a few)
Recommended redfish flies: (Just to name a few)
Recommended Tarpon flies: (The bigger the tarpon, the bigger the hook)
There is one fly that catches everything in damn near every scenario. When in doubt, or just have no clue, you can always feed them a shrimp. Every predator on the planet eats a shrimp... tie up one of these foxy shrimp.
Hope this helps shed some light on some things for you. If you have further questions, feel free to email sales@239flies.com or call the headquarters at 2399083513.
Thanks for reading!
- Nick
