How Many Flies Can You Tie With Our Yarn Lengths?

We sell three different kinds of yarns, each of which comes in a different length:

  • Wool yarns – 15 ft (4.5 m)
  • Poly yarns – 12 ft (3.5 m)
  • Crackle Yarns – 9 ft (2.7 m)

How many flies can you tie from each length? Well, it depends on how exactly you use the yarns when you tie flies. For me, this is about how much yarn I use to tie each fly:

  • Wool yarns – 2 in (5 cm)
  • Poly yarns – 1 in (2.5 cm)
  • Crackle Yarns – 2 in (5 cm)

So if you divide the length of each type of yarn by the number of inches of each yarn I use to tie a fly, you get this number of flies that I can get out of each length of yarn:

  • Wool yarns – 15 ft = 90 flies
  • Poly yarns – 12 ft = 144 flies
  • Crackle Yarns – 9 ft = 54 flies

Each little pack of yarn that we sell costs $2.50, so let's divide that price by the number of flies I can get per length of yarn to see how much each little bit of yarn used in a fly costs:

  • Wool yarns – $2.50 / 90 = ~$0.03 per fly (3 cents)
  • Poly yarns – $2.50 / 144 = ~$0.02 per fly (2 cents)
  • Crackle Yarns – $2.50 / 54 = ~$0.05 per fly (5 cents)

It needs to be noted that these are the quantities and prices under ideal conditions, but your fly tying won't be under those conditions. For example, if you use 2 inches of wool yarn on a fly, you'll probably start of with a 2.5- or 3-inch piece of yarn and then trim the excess once you've finished.