I used to do a lot of fly-tying. Had to have 1 PE course in college as a freshman, and I decided to take a course called 'Angling'. Tough class:D The course consisted of watching fishing movies, spin-casting, bait-casting and fly-casting. Watching videos of fly-tying and popper-tying. Then we were tested on casting abilities, our flies we would tie and written tests on what we had learned. Then we had to field test our flies. We also had a final exam where we had to tie certain flies in a set amount of time. Remember one was the royal coachman. Back then I had an uncle who lived in Boulder, CO and they had a cabin in the mountains near Nederland. He used to tie his own flies for all of the fishing he did around there.
I never did like the whip finnisher, could do it quicker just using the fingers of my right hand. The tool you had to have was the little gripper to hold the feathers, hackle, yarn , line, etc. Used a lot of clear nail polish.
We have friends that have a place close to Mark Twain Lake. He has a pond stocked with bass and catfish. He feeds his catfish every evening in the summer. I tied a fly using yarn that resembles the floating food that he feeds them and they just nailed it. Fun to catch 5 and 6 pound catfish on the surface with light tackle! Match the hatch works sometimes!