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A bit of stacker education and stacker philosophy is due, so here it is: quite a lot of information about hair stackers

... and then there's deer hair. And it can be many different things. It is not at all that easy to find the right kind for the many patterns with this fantastic material

Most people need some light when they tie flies. Some people more than others. This article is about lamps to use over your vise and table when tying.

Hackle pliers are simple tools for a simple task: handling hackles. But there might be more to the story of these humble tools.

What should you look for when choosing fly-tying scissors? Well, that all depends on a number of factors. This article takes an in-depth look at one of the fly tier's most important tools.

South African Korrie Broos has developed this "Chart of takes" to classify the takes and different methods to employ to fish for the takes or to trigger the take.

The old aught system for tying threads (6/0, 8/0, 10/0) isn't really good. So the newer Denier system is much better, right? No, not really!

Tube flies are flies tied on a tube rather than a hook. But putting it that simple is almost a crime, because tubes have evolved dramatically over the last few years, and bottles, rear tubes, Shomakov tubes, FITS tubes and all sorts of new systems have seen the light of day.

One of GFF's all-time most popular articles and downloads just got better! Download two new upgrades for FREE! 1) Leadercalc2007, enhanced with new formulas and label making features and 2) the all new GFF's Leader Guide, a 28-page PDF book you can use for your classroom or personal use.

Follow along as Harry Boyd takes us through the process of trimming the bamboo blank to the proper length, preparing and mounting your ferrules, and adjusting the fit of the ferrules. Many thanks to Harry for this well received series of articles.

This section of Tie Better will deal with rotary fly tying vices. I will try to explain what a true rotary vice is, what its advatnages are and how it can be used in different steps of fly tying.

My fly line doesn't understand me! And I don't understand it... This article tries to explain tapers, densities, coatings, memory and all the terms used for these expensive pieces of string.

Now that we have our strips of bamboo tapered into sections for our fly rod, the next step is to glue these strips together into whole rod sections.

Harry Boyd teaches us the tools and techniques required to turn strips of bamboo into tapered sections of a fly rod in Part 5 of his continuing series.

Split cane: In the fourth installment of Harry Boyd's series on bulding bamboo fly rods, he describes the tools and processes of binding strips together and then heat-treating them in some sort of oven.

This is the third section of Harry Boyd's continuing bamboo rod course. Here we begin to mold the raw bamboo into something that approaches the shape and form of a fly rod, and the real fun begins. Read more in Part 3 - Staggering Nodes and Rough Planing.

Harry Boyd continues his series on the construction of bamboo fly rods with a look at selecting, preparing, and splitting your culms of tonkin bamboo.

Harry Boyd tells us "Since Hiram Leonard and the earliest days of fly fishing in our country, the allure of fine spilt bamboo rods has been part of the magic of our sport." Read Harry's introduction to his series of articles on building bamboo fly rods.

It should be no secret that I'm a great fan of muddlers. These functional, characteristic and very beautiful flies that I connect directly with my favorite kind of fishing: night fishing for sea trout in the ocean. The technique used for tying them has always fascinated me, and although I do tie a lot of them, I still have a lot to learn in respect to spinning deer hair.

Whip finishing without a tool is not at all difficult. Lots of people use and praise the whip finishing tool which comes in many variations.

Choosing the right hair will make your deer hair flies - Comparaduns, EHC's, Muddlers, bass bugs - much easier to tie.

The gold bead flies that are now so popular, actually originated in the central part of Europe - more than 100 years ago.

We have all read fly patterns that refer to quills, barbs, barbules, fibers, shafts, stems, vanes and so forth, but when we read these terms do we know what they have reference to? This article sets all these terms and many more straight.

When stacking materials it is important to consider it as consisting of more than just one process. There are several steps involved: material selection, cleaning and preparing, selecting the right tool and performing the stacking process itself.