The Essential Fly Reviews

4.8 Rating 2,251 Reviews

97 %

of reviewers recommend The Essential Fly

4.8

Based on 2,251 reviews

Shipping & Delivery
Delivery Methods	Postal Service
Average Delivery Time	Within 5 Days
On-time Delivery	Greater than 90%
Accurate And Undamaged Orders	98%
Customer Service
Communication Channels	Telephone, Email, Live Chat
Queries Resolved In	Under An Hour
Customer Service	4.9 out of 5

About The Essential Fly:

Specialists in Fly Fishing with salmon, trout flies, and flies for lots of other species. We sell Fly Fishing Tackle and gear and a huge range of Fly Tying Materials and Tools - The Essential Fly is a leading supplier of gear for fly fishermen, rainbow & brown trout flies, salmon flies and flies for every species from our massive selection. Fly tying materials and tools to satisfy every fly tyers needs. With tackle from Greys to Wychwood, from fly rods to waders, luggage and all of the accessories you will need.

We have won awards for customer service and believe in value and quality. Check our reviews from thousands of customers all around the world. Having delivered to over 50 countries from homes to fishing lodges for that last minute requirement.

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The Essential Fly 5 star review on 16th February 2025

Anonymous

Anonymous // 01/01/2019

Filter: Rated 1 None 5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Stars Helpful

“Ordered 4 items, got 1. This meant I paid full postage which made the single item expensive. Site says free shipping over £30 for fly tying materials and flies. My total was £31+. A very disappointing experience.”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 week ago

Hi Mr Stafford and thank you for your recent order. We would like to take this opportunity to expand on the situation please if we may regarding your order. We see you placed your order on 6th June and took advantage of our 10% off offer, which is great, thank you. The CDC feathers and beads you ordered were all special order items (as shown on the site and at check out) and our customer services team called you to advise you of a delay in sourcing these as they were special order and we were reliant on the UK distributor for them. She also explained that you would receive email notification for all updates. The notes we have show you were comfortable with this. Its important to say that CDC is currently challenging to source unfortunately. We were very sorry that unfortunately they were out of stock with the distributor (bar 1 size of cdc) so you were refunded for the unavailable products and we sent over to you the 1 pack of CDC that we could get in for you. We really did our very best to source the CDC for you but sadly to no avail we are sorry. You would have received full email notifications about all the changes and if not, please do check your spam folder to be on the safe side. At the time you placed your order we did not have a free shipping offer available. This was only launched on 13th June. If in the future, you would like to check the availability of any rare or special order items in advance, please do not hesitate to call us on the phone and we will do our best to find out more for you ahead of placing an order. We will always do our best for you. With very best wishes Team TEF

Posted 5 days ago

“Terrible service and every time I try to provide feedback, unsurprisingly the email just bounces back.”

Helpful Report

Posted 4 weeks ago

Hello! We are so sorry to see your message. Our emails are monitored every day so we are not sure why your emails are bouncing back? We are customerservices@theessentialfly.com or we are available on the phone Monday to Friday office hours 01757 333003 if ever you need any assistance. From your review here we cannot see precisely any details about an order or query but we are more than happy to help you. Perhaps you ordered special order items? Please do let us know more details and we will attend to this asap for you. With very best wishes Team TEF

Posted 4 weeks ago

“I'm disappointed, l got notice about my order will be one week, after one mouth nothing even we are sorry or something like that, when l wrote my message to them, that's some kind of jokes or what? I waited next two weeks and l didn't get everything what I ordered, shame! l can't recommend.”

Helpful Report

Posted 2 months ago

Hello - thank you for your order in March and we are sorry to read your comments here. We would like to respond please. We can see that your order was dispatched with a few days of you placing it (it was placed when we were closed over the weekend). There were 2 items in your order that were special order as shown on the site at the time and as confirmed in the check out. We rely on the suppliers to get these to us as quickly as they can, as explained in our ordering process. Sadly sometimes there can be delays and we genuinely do all we can to hurry these along but we are beholden to the supplier. As soon as these came in we dispatched them to you immediately and we can see from the tracking and proof of delivery that they were successfully delivered to you. We hope you are enjoying your materials and we hope to be able to help you with your fly tying materials again in the future. Best wishes Team TEF

Posted 2 months ago

“Review box in way”

Helpful Report

Posted 2 months ago

We are sorry to receive your review, however in order for us to help you, could you please let us know more about your experience? We are not sure what mean in your feedback and as you have posted anonymously we cannot contact you directly. If you could please get in touch with customerservices@theessentialfly.com or call us on 01757 333003 we will do all we can to help. Thank you Team TEF

Posted 2 months ago

“Fly started to come apart on first day outing. P”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 months ago

Hello and thank you for your message here. This is a most unusual situation and we would appreciate an opportunity to look into this please. The best way to do this is via our customer services so they can check your order and the fly mentioned. Here we can't see which fly or more relevant information unfortunately. Please can we ask you to get in touch with customerservices@theessentialfly.com and we will do all we can to help. Thank you

Posted 3 months ago

“Took over 3 weeks to arrive, got slapped with customs fees totalling over a quarter of the money spent here. Never shopping here again”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

Hello Mr Ward We would like to take this opportunity to respond to your feedback please. We can see that your order was dispatched from us within a few days, once all your special order items were in, leaving us by 26th April. We shipped via courier to get your order to you asap. We can see that your order arrived on 1st May according to the tracking, some 5 days later (including a weekend)? With regards to the customs fees, we are sorry but there is nothing we can do to help you here, as we have no influence over the regulations about importing into Ireland. We do hope you are enjoying your gear. With very best wishes Team TEF

Posted 1 year ago

“No response to emails Order split into two Only one arrived so far but you believe it was in one delivery I think can't be sure Waiting responses”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

Hi Mr Glanvill, we are very disappointed to see your feedback as we have actively been in touch with you via email. We have forwarded them all to you again and have since been in touch via the phone too to reassure you. We sincerely hope your deliveries are both now with you. All our records on Track and Trace show them as having arrived safely. We are available on the phone too during office hours on 01757333003 if you would like any assistance at any time. With all good wishes TEF customer care

Posted 1 year ago

We are very pleased to hear that your delivery is with you. Thank you and have a great Christmas Team TEF

Posted 1 year ago

“very exspensive £23 for uv resin big bottle with 20ml of liquid not worth the 2 week wait”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

“Well in the past I’ve always had good service but I must admit this last purchase I was sent two different kinds of Ultra Wire Hot Yellow TSWB011 One the usual bright shiny wire but the other a dull wire same code. Now Julie at essential fly to her credit looked into this matter & found to her surprise that Waldo the supplier has discontinued the bright one & replaced it with this very full unattractive wire which in my & other tyres opinion will be a disaster. Yours Sincerely Mike Lonsdale GAIA Flyfishing Instructor.”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

“I have not received the order yet as at 1 may 2023”

Helpful Report

Posted 2 years ago

“I was very disappointed with the hook size. They were advertised as a size 10 but were much larger”

Helpful Report

Posted 2 years ago

“Ordered magpie wings. Upon opening package it was full of beetles. Said I have to fill out form for refund and mail product back. Ridiculous as I’m I e in Canada and to mail wings back forvrefund would cost 3 x the price of the wings! Stupidity.”

Helpful Report

Posted 2 years ago

“Bad ...I don't receive my order 😡😡😡”

Helpful Report

Posted 2 years ago

“Hallo, habe nichts erhalten obwohl ich mit der Kreditkarte bezahlt habe. Ich finde es beschämend mit solchen Machenschaften Geld zu „verdienen „. Ich würde mich schämen!!! Habe mehrmals per E Mail reklamiert aber keine befriedigte Antwort erhalten. Ich werde mit meinen Fischerkollegen über Euch sprechen und das wird sicher keine gute Werbung sein. Wenn ihr das nötig habt ??”

The Essential Fly 1 star review on 27th January 2023

Helpful Report

Posted 2 years ago

Hallo Wir haben Ihre Bewertung online gesehen und würden Ihnen gerne direkt antworten. Wir danken Ihnen für Ihre Bestellung vom 4. Januar für Bindematerialien, einschließlich einer Sonderbestellzeit von Veniard. Ihre Bestellung wurde am 11. Januar von uns versandt (nachdem Ihr Sonderbestellartikel von Veniard eingetroffen ist) und Sie haben die automatische Versandbenachrichtigung per E-Mail erhalten. Ihre Bestellung wurde von Royal Mail International unter der Sendungsverfolgungsnummer LE115587523GB versandt. Wenn Sie sich bei Ihrem Konto anmelden und Ihren Bestellverlauf ansehen, können Sie diesen Versand sehen. Unglücklicherweise werden wir um diese Zeit darüber informiert, dass Royal Mail für seine internationalen Sendungen gehackt wurde, und Sie können darüber in der Presse lesen. Wir können uns vorstellen, dass dies leider zu einer Verzögerung Ihrer Bestellung geführt hat. Es tut mir leid, dass Sie unsere E-Mails nicht erhalten haben, aber seien Sie versichert, dass wir immer unser Bestes für unsere Kunden geben möchten. Unser Kundendienstteam spricht kein Deutsch, verlässt sich aber auf Übersetzungsdienste. Hoffen Sie also, dass diese Antwort angemessen übersetzt ist. Wir hoffen, dass Ihre Lieferung bald bei Ihnen eintrifft und danken Ihnen nochmals für Ihr Verständnis. Vielen dank Hello We have seen your review online and would like to respond to you directly. We thank you for your order of 4th January for tying materials, including a special order tiem from Veniard. Your order was dispatched from us on 11th January (after your special order item arrived from Veniard) and you will have received the automated dispatch notice via email. Your order was sent by Royal Mail International under tracking number LE115587523GB. If you login to your account and look at your order history you can see this dispatch. Unfortunately around this time we are informed that Royal Mail was hacked for its international shipments and you can read about this in the press. We imagine that this has caused a hold up with your order unfortunately. I am sorry you have not received our emails but please be assured we always want to do our best for our customers. Our customer services team don't speak German but rely on translation services so hope this response is appropriately translated. We hope your delivery will be with you very soon and thank you again for your kind understanding.

Posted 2 years ago

“My last order still has not arrived.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

We are genuinely sorry to hear there was a delay in you receiving your parcel. It left us in a timely fashion after you having placed your order. We sent it first class Royal Mail on a tracked service (which we hope you received email notification about). We can see it has now arrived. We do apologise for any inconvenience. We have taken this up with Royal Mail to complain as it should have been with you next day from dispatch. We would like to reassure you that this is not normal practice and we hope it does not deter you from shopping with us again. With kind regards Team TEF

Posted 5 years ago

“Very disappointed this time. Order placed 31st May for a VERY popular fly, the Grey Wulff. It took TWO MONTHS to arrive. Have had to move to another supplier.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

We are very sorry for the delay on the dispatch of this fly. You are right that it is indeed a very popular fly and unfortunately we had sold out of this fly during the start of the season and into May. We have our flies made up in very large batches and unfortunately this takes time hence the delay in getting it to you . Please be assured that we carry hundreds of thousands of flies in at any one time and we are genuinely sorry that you were not able to get these flies sooner. We hope you saw the email communications from our customer services team keeping you in the loop on this matter. We also hope you will give us an opportunity to remedy this situation for you and reassure you of our commitment to our customers. With best wishes The Essential Fly

Posted 5 years ago

“I would love to say something ++ But I have not received my order yet. You sent it on the 9th. I hope this does not happen on my last order of 135.00. not sent yet?”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

Hello and thank you for your message. I am sorry your order has not arrived. We definitely shipped it to you same day via first class airmail so I hope it will be with you very soon. Your order of this week has not yet been dispatched as there are special order items contained within it. As soon as these come in we will dispatch straight away as usual. Kind regards Ann and team at TEF

Posted 7 years ago

“I never did receive my order must of got lost at sea”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

The Essential Fly is rated 4.8 based on 2,251 reviews