Im not new to tying, dont get me wrong but its been years. my dad gave me his box when i was a kid and now since weve moved i can only find the vise and bobbin. i live in san bernardino county and am looking for a good fly fishing shop. any suggestions besides bass pro. ( already looked )
thx for da help.
conley

The closest fly shop to you is Bob Marriott's in Fullerton. It's a great shop; one of the largest fly shops I've seen and has a huge fly tying section.

thanks. that helps a ton

This might be a little tangential but I wish someone would have told me this when I started tying about five years ago.

You mention that you found your dad's bobbin and while I can't speak to the condition of that one I offer my experience with those recently produced. Those without some sort of ceramic or some such insert in the tip are very difficult to use. They seem to have a seam inside them that snags the thread and break it long before proper tension can be achieved. Since switching to ceramic or some other inserted tip bobbins I almost never break my thread. I now use the ones without inserts only for floss or wire, never for thread.

I almost gave up on tying while using the inexpensive, non-insert type because I could never get good thread tension and either my materials were too loose or I would break off and have to cast back on mid tie and things just were generally a mess. I sucked it up and bought a Tiemco ceramic tip bobbin and it was like someone turned a switch. About the only time I break my thread now is when I clumsily nick the hook point and weaken the thread. I've also had great luck with the Griffin models and they retail for about half the price of the Tiemco (I think). I've since bought several more Griffins and couldn't be happier. These bobbins seem to be considerably smoother at the mouth exit and that seems to be the difference.

Could be my lack of technique, my ham fisted carpenter's grip, bad karma, or general meat-headedness, but I do know that better bobbins made a huge difference for me in my fly tying efforts.

Just my two cents . . .