Walking into a fly shop for the first time is a lot. Four hundred things on the wall, and no obvious way to tell which forty you actually need. Most people starting out either overbuy, underbuy, or spend a season sorting it out the hard way.
We built the Essentials Sling because we kept watching it happen. When our Fly Fishing 101 classes started running, students would show up with gaps — no floatant, no split shot, the wrong tippet, or a pack full of things they'd never use. So our staff made a list of what actually comes out of our packs on a normal day, and we loaded it into an Orvis sling.
Here's what's in it:
- Orvis Sling Pack
- 4X Tippet Spool
- 5X Tippet Spool
- 4X 9ft Tapered Leader
- 2 Medium Oros Indicators
- 1 Nipper
- 1 Forceps
- 14 Seasonal Flies with Fly Box
- Dry Fly Floatant
- Split Shot
- RFS Zinger with Carabiner
The flies in the sling rotate seasonally. So the fourteen in the pack in October aren't the fourteen in the pack in June — they're what's working when you buy it, and they come in a box rather than loose in a bag. The tippet is 4X and 5X because that's what covers most of what you'll do on the Truckee. And there's a zinger and carabiner in there because the single most common thing a new angler does is set their nippers down on a rock and never see them again.
It's built for someone starting out, but it isn't a beginner's kit in the dismissive sense. This is what our staff carries — and it's what our instructors teach from. If you've taken a 101, a 201, or a three-hour private intro with us, you've already handled one.
We'll be straight about the price. Bundling saves you about five percent over buying the pieces one at a time. That's not really why it exists. It exists so you don't have to guess, and so you can walk out with everything in one trip.
Here we have spread everything out so you can see what you are getting.
$249.95. In the shop at 238 S. Arlington and online.