Our fly tying kit contains all the supplies you’ll need to begin.

To many fly fishers, tying flies is an indivisible part of the experience. I've created my best new patterns using a tiny bedside table in the Green Acres Motel on the Delaware River. Some of the biggest laughs of any fishing trip come from tying sessions on an annual trip to Maine with Jim Lepage of Orvis and Jim Babb of Sporting Classics magazine. Many of the names we give these new patterns can't be mentioned in polite company.

I recently spent a week steelhead fishing in Kamchatka. One night, Vladimir Plotnikov, one of the Russian guides, and I decided to tie some flies after dinner. My tent-mate, Ken Buechler, of Rancho Santa Fe, California, has three young daughters who love to tie flies but he has not tied any in years. After a few glasses of vodka he got up enough nerve to try his hand. Fifteen minutes later he had produced a fine Pink Woolly Bugger. The next morning, on the river, I noticed he had not tied on his new fly.

"Ken," I asked," why don't you try that fly you tied last night? I promise you it'll give you a greater thrill to catch one fish on your own fly than three on one you didn't tie."

He looked me right in the eye and said, "I'd rather catch the three fish."

Even though I know Ken could have hooked as many fish on his fly as on a store-bought pattern, I also realized it takes time to have confidence in your own creations. It takes confidence just to make the commitment to tying flies. I cannot begin to count the times I've heard fly fishers wistfully utter: "I don't have time" or "I don't have the patience" or "My hands are too big" or "I'm too old" or "They don't have classes in my area" or "I don't have a place in my house to do it".

• No one is hopeless. In 30 years of teaching people to tie, I have never had anyone who could not tie a fishable Woolly Bugger in less than an hour. Time is an issue for most people these days, and there is always something more important than tying a few flies unless you tie for a living. But all you need is an hour here and there. Can give up one episode of "Law & Order" a week? I guarantee you'll have a full box of beautiful flies by spring.
• Don't have the patience? Lepage has the patience of a 10-month-old Labrador retriever and he's one of the best tiers I know. Now that I think of it, most of the best tiers I know are not what you'd call long-suffering.
• No hands are too big. Del Mazza, perhaps the world's finest tier of classic Catskill dry flies, has fingers the diameter of Coney Island hot dogs. He drives an earthmover for a living.
• I'm constantly amazed by older tiers. You'd think that tying skills would decrease with age, but aided by a good pair of close-up glasses and lots of light, great fly tiers continue to produce innovative patterns well into their 70s and 80s. It's something you can pick up anytime in your life.
• As long as you are neat and are willing to pick up after each session, you can tie flies on a kitchen or dining room table. Just assemble only the materials you need for a few patterns, use a special tray that catches waste below your vise, and when you are done you can keep the materials and tools in a nice wooden bench/box or a lightweight nylon kit bag. These are also great for taking materials and tools on the road.
• Hands-on lessons are the best way to tie flies, and many Orvis dealers and company-owned stores offer weekend classes. However, fly tying can also be easily learned from the combination of a good book and a kit that was built around the book. We just happen to have the best combination of the two. With the Orvis Fly-Tying Kit, you can learn how to tie decent flies in just a few hours. It comes with a full-color, detailed book, The award-winning Orvis Fly-Tying Manual.(14KH-2000). All the materials in the kit are labeled with the same names used in the manual, so you'll be able to follow along with complete confidence as you progress with your newfound skills. If you buy a kit and aren't completely happy with the results, send it back to me. Even if you've used up some of the materials, I'll give you a complete refund on the kit.

You cannot imagine what great therapy it is to sit down to a vise, listen to some good music (or listen to that episode of "Law & Order" if you must) and tie a few Spey flies for next month's steelhead trip. Wait until everyone else has gone to bed and the house is quiet. You'd pay a shrink hundreds of dollars for this kind of peace.

Fly tying kits are also one of the most popular holiday gifts in the sporting world. If you know a friend, relative, or a fishing buddy who would love to learn, a kit will be a gift that will last a lifetime. Even if they only catch one fish instead of three.