More background information

A good vice to me is when my fly tying is in a perfect harmony with my tools, my materials and my tying techniques. That means that good quality tools are unbelievable important to me. I use my tying equipment almost every day and that’s why I can easily compare a vice with a car. If you drive a lot you want probably more comfort and a very durable car as well. It’s no different with a vice for me. I tie a lot, hundreds of hours a year, so I want to have a Volvo or Mercedes among my vices, but a Ferrari is not needed.

I tie thousands of flies every year and that means that my vices have to work hard and must be extremely durable and reliable. All the more because I also do a lot of workshops, classes and tying demonstrations all over the world, and you don’t want your vice to fail or struggle or give you problems when tying for the public. A vice is also a very personal choice and that’s why I always react with great enthusiasm when a young fly tier proudly shows me his or her vice. I just have to think back to when as a young lad to how disappointingly uninterestedly some people were when I showed my stuff to them.  And I don’t want to be like that and don’t want to make that same mistake. If somebody is very enthusiastic about his or her hobby you should never do anything that might dampen their spirits and take away their motivation. You also can’t look into people’s wallets, and what’s more, a few of the less expenses vices perform quite well. This is why I gave a high quality vice to an 11-year-old girl in Canada who attended my workshops for three years in a row and was an absolute talent with thread and feather. She had an extremely poor vice to work with so I couldn’t resist giving her one of my personal vices.  She is a beautiful teenager now and still tying flies, which makes me feel really good.

My first vice was a vintage D.H. Thompson that I recently gave away to a good friend of mine in Malaysia who had just started fly tying. Imagine this vice is over 40 years old and still working. I am sure a whole range of oldies like me started on a Thompson. In Canada I have permanently stored two boxes of similar looking Pro AA vices that I use during my kid classes and Fly Rite sponsors them to me. Perfect for kids or starters to discover the art of fly tying, or just dip into the fly tying world. You don’t need to start fly tying using the best of the best vice because I often seen people buy an expensive vice and just weeks later quit fly tying. Those are usually the best vices to buy.

My second vice I got sometime in the 1980’s and it was a second hand Dyna King. It was good, but I didn’t use it for long and actually swapped it for a brand new Regal when I was in the U.S. tying some flies at the Fly Tying Symposium in New Jersey in the 1980’s. I immediately fell in love with the Regal style of spring clamp and the Regal became my main vice to work with. I have to admit that I got very addicted to it and I limited myself to Regals for a long time. Since my first New Jersey show I got pretty close to Regal. Of course in between I was also very fortunate to be able to use many other vices, like the HMH, Renzetti, LAW, J-Vise, Thompson, Peak, C&F, Wolff, Norvise and a few others whose names I have forgotten. All you easily can find when google a bit. Of all those vices the LAW and J-Vice impressed me the most and therefore both names stayed in my memory for a long time.

For many years I had been using Jay Smit’s excellent tube fly attachment when I tied my tube flies.  With a special adapter it fits on my Regal vice stems. He made quite a few for Regal.

I was quite loyal to Regal for about 30 years, but beside the Regal vice I also used the Frog from Magrini (Italy) for quite some years. The Frog is very similar to Regal and of amazing quality and at some stages even better than Regal.

Close to my retirement from the Army I had promised myself that as soon I got out I was going to spend a lot of time fly tying. I wanted to reward myself and buy my last vice and stick to that till I die. I wanted a higher quality upgrade for my Regal and Frog; a vice fully adapted to my personal wishes and needs. It was an easy choice because with so many years of fly tying experience my preference was made very quickly and today I can proudly say that my last and main vice right now is a J-Vice. Although there have already been a high number of excellent reviews about the J-Vice I would like to share my personal impressions of it with you. My review might be helpful to those who have doubts about choosing a vice from what’s available on the market today.