The First Five Flies to Tie

1. Clamp a size 10 streamer hook and lay a smooth thread base from the eye to the bend.
2. Tie in a marabou tail about as long as the hook shank.
3. Tie in a hackle feather by the tip at the back, plus a length of wire if you want ribbing.
4. Dub or wrap chenille forward to just behind the eye.
5. Wind the hackle forward in open spirals, tie it off, and counter-wrap the wire over it to lock it down.
6. Whip finish behind the eye and add a drop of head cement.

Teaches: thread tension, tying materials in, winding a hackle. Forgives: almost everything. A lumpy Woolly Bugger catches fish in cold and high water all season.

1. Slide a small bead onto a size 18 hook, bead hole first, and seat it at the eye.
2. Start thread behind the bead and wrap a smooth, slim body down to the bend and back.
3. Tie in fine silver wire and rib it forward in even turns.
4. Tie off the wire behind the bead, build a tiny thread collar, whip finish.

Teaches: working small, keeping bodies slim, even ribbing. Why now: it is the simplest possible fly, so the only thing you can get wrong is proportion — which is exactly the lesson.

1. Thread base on a size 14 nymph hook; tie in a short tail of guard hairs.
2. Tie in fine gold wire for ribbing.
3. Touch a little wax to the thread, apply a thin noodle of hare's ear dubbing, and wind a tapered body.
4. Rib forward with the wire in even turns and tie off.
5. Dub a slightly fatter thorax, whip finish, then pick the thorax out with a bodkin so it looks scruffy.

Teaches: dubbing, taper, and the restraint to use less material than instinct suggests. The universal beginner error: too much dubbing. Half what you think.

1. Thread base on a size 16 dry hook; tie in a hackle at the back.
2. Dub a thin body forward, then palmer the hackle over it in open turns and tie off.
3. Cut a small bunch of elk hair, even the tips in a hair stacker.
4. Measure it so the tips reach just past the hook bend, then tie it in at the eye with firm pinching wraps.
5. Trim the butts to a short head, whip finish, cement.

Teaches: measuring and controlling hair, pinch wraps, trimming a head. Harder because: hair spins around the hook if the wraps are loose and flares if they are too tight. This is the pattern where you learn thread pressure properly.

1. Thread base on a size 16 dry hook; tie in a split tail of hackle fibers.
2. Tie in a white calf hair or synthetic post upright at the front third and build a thread base around it to stand it up.
3. Dub a slim gray body back to the tail and forward again.
4. Tie in a grizzly hackle at the base of the post and wind it horizontally around the post, three or four turns.
5. Tie the hackle off against the hook, whip finish under the hackle without trapping fibers, cement sparingly.

Teaches: everything at once — proportion, a standing post, a horizontal hackle, and finishing in a confined space. Why last: it is the fly most likely to make a beginner quit, and the one you will tie most once you can.

You can tie, in some form, most trout flies in existence. Everything else is a variation: a different dubbing, a bead instead of lead, a foam body instead of hair.

The natural next step is to tie the patterns your own water needs — look at the regional starter boxes and tie a dozen of whichever pattern you lose most. For what the finished flies go into, see best fly boxes.