Ridiculous fly prices

[Grommit]

Farlows would only get £2.43 for the fly as 42p of it goes straight to the government in VAT

Take off that £2.43 overheads (cost of goods, rent, rates, wages, utilities, insurance, etc, etc) and the profit margin is very quickly eaten into.

For a good quality fly on a decent hook with real JC, I dont think that £2.85 is unreasonable.

How many people on here have sung the praises, rightly so, of Donegal flies? Their salmon and sea trout flies retail, on average, at £2.75 each

[charlieH]

Because I tie my own, and have more flies than I will probably ever use (though admittedly am still lagging quite some way behind Paul's tally) I am very fussy about what I fish with, and I see a great many commercially produced flies that I would not willingly tie on. I dare say the fish aren't as picky as me, but if I found myself unable to tie I would still be prepared to pay good money for really good flies.

Let's assume that the price difference between Farlows' flies, which may just possibly be tied by real fishermen, and those from somewhere like Kenya, which may be tied by someone who has no idea of what a salmon or sea trout looks like, let alone how to fly fish for them, is about £2. So assuming you had £400 to spend on tackle, you could use it to buy 200 top class flies instead of 200 average ones. Alternatively, you could buy yourself a super duper new rod from a fashionable and heavily promoted brand. Which do you think is actually likely to improve your chances of catching a fish?

Your flies are probably the most important piece of tackle in the whole setup, yet too many people, who probably own a number of top brand rods costing several hundred pounds each, are willing to economise on them and buy cheap imports.

Anyway, if you're paying a minimum of £755 per person for a couple of nights sea trout fishing (including the light plane transfer to West Wales), a box of good flies is small beer...

[rrw35]

I think Donegal Fly Company flies are the finest available. Next to them, Fulling Mill.

With flies, you get what you pay for.

Theres a lot of cheap **** out there that just look crap, poor proportions, fall apart quickly and poor quality hooks.

[Grommit]

Couldnt agree more rrw35

You buy cheap, you buy twice.

And as charlieH said, the fly is probaly the most important piece of your tackle

I use Donegal Flies as well as stocking them and would hesitate to pay £1 (trout flies) or £2.75 (salmon and sea trout) for them

Probably the best on the market and worth every penny

[highlander]

The problem people won't pay "good money" for flies. Oh they will pay £600 for the latest Sage or Hardy, but skimp on what matters, the business end The Hook.
Naw far to many cheap imports for home grown tier to make any real money other than possibly a niche category. Oh a good tyer will maybe get a wee bitty more, but not at that kind of money.
Still good luck to them that try.
Me I'll stick with my day job for a while longer.

Tight lines

[The Famous Grouse]

charlieh said:

Anyway, if you're paying a minimum of £755 per person for a couple of nights sea trout fishing (including the light plane transfer to West Wales), a box of good flies is small beer...

Not to mention what they'll actually be spending on beer, which won't be small.

Bri, all I can say is you should have stocked up at Lund's Hardware while we were there. For a buck apiece, you could have loaded your fly boxes with Egg Sucking Leeches, Wounded Cheetos, and Green Butt Skunks. Not to mention the ever-popular Ray Charles, the mysterious Brassie Knoll, and the versatile Egg Sh!tting Leech.

And quality stuff too. I'd be willing to bet you'd never find a better tied Wounded Cheeto anywhere.

Grouse

[rrw35]

grommit said:

Probably the best on the market and worth every penny

Yep, they must beat those Kenyan kids a bit harder than the rest to get that quality.

[FlyBri]

Now I wouldn't mind paying £2.85 for an egg sh1tting leech Jay...

[Sewinman]

charlieh said:

Because I tie my own, and have more flies than I will probably ever use (though admittedly am still lagging quite some way behind Paul's tally) I am very fussy about what I fish with, and I see a great many commercially produced flies that I would not willingly tie on. I dare say the fish aren't as picky as me, but if I found myself unable to tie I would still be prepared to pay good money for really good flies.

Let's assume that the price difference between Farlows' flies, which may just possibly be tied by real fishermen, and those from somewhere like Kenya, which may be tied by someone who has no idea of what a salmon or sea trout looks like, let alone how to fly fish for them, is about £2. So assuming you had £400 to spend on tackle, you could use it to buy 200 top class flies instead of 200 average ones. Alternatively, you could buy yourself a super duper new rod from a fashionable and heavily promoted brand. Which do you think is actually likely to improve your chances of catching a fish?

Your flies are probably the most important piece of tackle in the whole setup, yet too many people, who probably own a number of top brand rods costing several hundred pounds each, are willing to economise on them and buy cheap imports.

Anyway, if you're paying a minimum of £755 per person for a couple of nights sea trout fishing (including the light plane transfer to West Wales), a box of good flies is small beer...

Interesting Charles. That big brown (slob/sea trout) on the Towy? It came to a surface lure in the dead of night. Do you think you could have put a twig with a hook in the end over that fish and have it come up....?

[Cothi]

There are no rules for sea trout at night as all of us half-crazed and desperate junkies know. It's more displacement of water at night - in my uninformed view.

During the day however, I really believe that a well tied, properly profiled fly, made of the best materials and on a sound hook is the best investment in your tackle that you can make. It's what the fish sees.

[The Famous Grouse]

rrw35 said:

grommit said:

Probably the best on the market and worth every penny

Yep, they must beat those Kenyan kids a bit harder than the rest to get that quality.

Or do you suppose the Kenyans are just willing to work for less than 20 quid an hour plus 12 weeks of vacation a year plus. . .

It's always interesting how all these "foreign" tied flies are always tied by child labor, using an inferior hook, substandard materials, and improperly at that.

Grouse



Grouse

[Grommit]

It's always interesting how all these "foreign" tied flies are always tied by child labor, using an inferior hook, substandard materials, and improperly at that

That certainly does not apply to Donegal Flies who have their own factories, using adult labour and top quality materials. Their workers are not paid 'per fly' as most fly manufacturing companies do, but they pay their workers a fixed wage regardless of how many flies they turn out. The emphasis is very much on quality and not quantity

[OReilly]

No self respecting sea-trout would take a fly costing less than
£2.50
How do I know?
"Because they told me so" ;D ;D
Hugh

[charlieH]

sewinman said:

Interesting Charles. That big brown (slob/sea trout) on the Towy? It came to a surface lure in the dead of night. Do you think you could have put a twig with a hook in the end over that fish and have it come up....?

One of the fascinating things about sea trout and salmon fishing is that questions like this are, almost always, unanswerable. Since the fish aren't feeding as trout do, the whole business of getting them to take is all the more mysterious. If you spot a feeding trout, provided you manage not to spook it, you can probably go through a well stocked fly box until you find something it wants. There is, in most cases, a certain logic that dictates whether or not a trout will take your fly; you can work at it until you come to the right combination of pattern, presentation and so on. Except on very odd occasions you cannot do that with sea trout or salmon.

We cannot ever know whether a twig would have taken that Towy fish. Yes, we knew that surface lures had been working on that river in recent days, but beyond that there was no logic to indicate that one pattern of surface lure would be more successful than another. As I've said before, fly choice, particularly when fishing for salmon and sea trout, has so much to do with confidence. I acknowledge that I may be fussier than the fish are, but there are so many commercially tied flies which I simply wouldn't use with confidence.

[Sewinman]

True CH but what I was getting at is the fly may not be that important when fishing for sea trout. My most succesful fly which has accounted for five fish is a chewed up old silver stoat that has lost its wing. It is basically some silver wire and black fluff. Fishing the right depth is more important IMHO - on that particular night it was 'up top'.

That said, I have forked out £3 a fly on some very nice hand tied snake lures and I think they are worth every penny. I know that they take time to make and only use top materials. A silver stoat wee double is not in the same league and should not command that kind of price.

Still got some of your flies, sitting pretty in my sewin box