It always surprises me when fly tyers tell me they've never seen half-hitch tools or don't know how to use them. Half-hitch tools are slender metal cylinders with holes of different sizes at each end. Usually they come in packages of three so that the tyer ends up with six different sizes of holes with which to work. Here's how half-hitch tools are used.
Half-hitch tools are, as their name suggests, used to do half-hitches. Instead of laying the second and third fingers of the tier's dominant hand on top of the thread and twisting to make the half-hitch, the tyer first matches the size of the hole in the end of one of the tools to the size of the hook eye and then lays the tool on top of the thread, twists, and with the tool up against the eye, slides the thread off onto the hook to make the half-hitch.
Many fly tyers also use half-hitch tools to push materials back down the hook when they've let their materials crowd the eye, and some use half-hitch tools to push clumps of hair tightly together when spinning hair for muddler minnows and other flies.
Next time you're tying an small elk-hair caddis, try using the tool to make
five or six half-hitches up under the deer/elk hair wing before trimming it
to form the head. This is a whole lot easier than doing it by hand when
tying on a small, traditional down-eye hook and is just as effective as using
a whip finish.
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