REVIEW: River Road Creations Cutters

Tomsu Supreme Hopper cutters on this hopper pattern

A few years ago, I picked up a set of River Road Creations foam cutters. My first cutters were the Tomsu Supreme Hopper set. I was impressed by the sharp edges and the clean foam cut-outs that I could turn out. Plus, being able to turn my plain old foam sheets into a much wider variety of standard shapes and sizes was a great way to work through all the drawers of foam I had collected over the years.

So the cutters come in a variety of styles or shapes and sizes (within a given style). Check out their website to get a good idea of what they carry: www.riverroadcreations.com.

One of the questions I get is "which cutter or set should I start with?". Of course, it depends on what you're going to be tying, but assuming you want to start with something that can tie a variety of flies for bigger dries and hoppers etc, you can't go wrong with the "Hopper/Caddis/Ant" body cutters.


You can do the type of patterns listed in the name, but you can also do the Stoneflopper, Chernobyls or "Blingnobyls" as we prefer them (see inset) as well as other foam dry patterns. The Chernobyl cutters and the Universal Bug Body cutters are also good for this type of purpose

The Blingnobyl Ant

If you can swing it, I'm a big fan of the sets. They come with a nice wooden holder and a cutting pad (very important to have the pad)