Too many flies?

[Eperous]

I guess I'm just an old fart, or just plain old...

I've been fly fishing for trout, and tying flies for over sixty years now... it used to be all the trout patterns I needed to know could be found in a few books by Ray Bergman, J. Edison Leonard, Don DuBois, Charles Wetzel, and a few other noted authorities... and not to forget Family Circle's Guide to Trout Flies, a thin fifty-something page booklet that was one of my first tying Bibles....

Now-a-days the Internet is flooded with new, "can't-miss" patterns... plus I get a weekly email from Blue Ribbon Flies listing fly patterns I've never seen/nor heard of before... and by no means do I mean to pick on Blue Ribbon Flies, as I'm a huge fan of Craig Mathews' fly patterns... and I do firmly believe that given catch-and-release angling, plus given the number of flyfishers who assault our waters these days, trout are seeing more flies than ever before, while sometimes new-and-different flies might be just the ticket...

So here's my long-winded question, are the multitude of new fly patterns simply a "marketing gimmick" to sell new tying materials and flies, or what?

Here in the Catskills I often rely upon trout flies used by the masters from decades ago, and they work just fine... with a few new patterns melded in...

Just curious, wondering about other thoughts....

Ed

[ctwhite]

I experiment with streamers - featherwings mostly - because that's what fly tyers and fishermen do in the Northeast. Otherwise, I've been tying and successfully fishing the same dry/wet/nymph patterns for decades...

[DrLogik]

Ed,

I'm no marketing or fly expert but here's my opinion. I think they as much marketing ploys as the result of functional need. There's always a need for a fly to do something different, look different float or tumble on the bottom differently. Necessity is the mother of invention they say.

I couple that with the need for fly shops to stay in business. They sure aren't making consistent money off of me and probably you either, so they have to have that cash flow. I think they see the new patterns that emerge and create new ones themselves and of course they have all the right materials for those flies! Good on them!

Yeah so what if a fly looks like a pink marshmallow with dysentery and is called "Pink in Heat" or some other crazy name. If it brings more fish to hand, more buyers into the shops and keeps the shops in business, I say go for it!

BTW, does anyone know where I can source pink-speckled neon-chartreuse holographic chenille that sinks? I'm working on my Scantilly Clad Amorphous Menagerie nymph. I call it the SCAM Nymph. It'll look like a leech that swallowed neon-green blood and got the runs.

[Eperous]

... BTW, does anyone know where I can source pink-speckled neon-chartreuse holographic chenille that sinks? I'm working on my Scantilly Clad Amorphous Menagerie nymph. I call it the SCAM Nymph. It'll look like a leech that swallowed neon-green blood and got the runs.

[Perry Palin]

I carry a lot of flies. I want to have flies that will work in any of the four or five watersheds where I do my fishing. Sometimes streams just a few miles apart will call for different patterns, or different variations or sizes of patterns.

I'm betting that the new patterns out there will all catch a fish someplace, sometime. What's too often missing is the work that's necessary to find the best fly for a specific stream, season, and fishing method.

Some of my best patterns have been developed over years, changing each material and each color one at a time, and testing each new variation on the trout, keeping the best changes and discarding the others until I can't make the fly any better. Guess what. That only works until the trout food in the stream changes due to changes in water chemistry, water temperature, pollution, or other forces, and then I'm back to the starting point. Over the years we've seen some insect hatches lost and other hatches grow. A friend years ago tied a deadly crayfish imitation for a popular trout stream, and when the agricultural practices improved and the water became cleaner and cooler, the crayfish disappeared.

The same friend tied some his "standard" patterns (Adams, for example) with one unconventional material or color for the heavily fished streams because, he said, the trout see the standards all the time and learn to avoid them. I didn't know if I should buy that, but he caught a lot of fish and based his flies on stream observations.

Are there too many patterns? Maybe not. But we should carry the ones that are based on stream work, not on marketing programs.

[bornwrongera]

Being an Old Fart too, I carry all of the old stuff in my fly boxes. I remember once telling a bunch of people "all you need is a fly box full of Elk Hair Caddis and you can get the job done where ever you go". That year I only carried Elk Hair Caddis flies and caught plenty of fish. With that said, would I've caught more fish using different patterns? Now looking back at this time in my life, yeah, probally haha. Will I start carrying "new patterns" now? Nope, the beauty of being an Old Fart.

[ted patlen]

Anything will work if you fish it enough. What is your comfort zone?

When I think back over the years (as long ago as Ed), of all the "new" or "improved " flies and then look into my over crowded fly boxes I recall what Bergman wrote; to paraphrase, keep the fly in the water, and do something different. I also remember salmon fishing for the first time and the guides remark to every fly I asked if it would work. His simple reply was, yes.

Hey Ed, is this a back-door thread about presentation?

But, sometimes... I keep remembering an article about striper fishing in the Chesapeake all about catching bass with strips of yellow plastic grocery bags.

It ain't the Mazeradi, it's how you drive it.

Love posts like this, thanks Ed.

[Eric Peper]

Ed, I'm currently carrying about 15 (mostly small) fly boxes in my vest. Not one has a "standard" (read "commercially sold") pattern in it unless you count the ants in black, brown and red. I find it easier to tie imitations of the bugs I see as I see them. My renditions feature the dominant visible characteristics of the insect. This approach has worked pretty well for me for the past fifteen or so years, and most important it simplifies my tying and fishing life.

Eric

[Eperous]

... I carry a lot of flies. I want to have flies that will work in any of the four or five watersheds ... But we should carry the ones that are based on stream work, not on marketing programs.

So just to be totally clear, above board, and honest about this... I probably carry over a dozen assorted fly boxes myself, that most of the time stay in a bag in my truck until needed in the waters I fish that day... I have three little boxes of headwater brook trout flies, a box of freestone nymphs, two boxes of wets--- traditional & soft-hackle, several boxes of streamers and bucktails depending on where and time of year I'm fishing, plus a many little boxes devoted to Catskill tailwaters with lots of cdc flies, and a box of Sulfurs, and a couple boxes of BWO's that are season dependent...

So I whole-heartedly agree with the comments above... so noted, my fly selection evolved over half-a-century of wandering many different watersheds here in NY, plus other states... but I guess my point is, I normally don't take the bait when I read about a new fly pattern or new material to tie something new and different... I make an effort to evaluate new things based upon needs, and situations I think they will address as opposed to glossy advertisement on the latest and greatest....

And yes Ted, I think presentation is King... while generic patterns rule... and everyone should read the works of John Atherton and Datus Proper, IMHO...

Sorry to rant on....

Ed

[billems]

Ed,

I'm no marketing or fly expert but here's my opinion. I think they as much marketing ploys as the result of functional need. There's always a need for a fly to do something different, look different float or tumble on the bottom differently. Necessity is the mother of invention they say.

I couple that with the need for fly shops to stay in business. They sure aren't making consistent money off of me and probably you either, so they have to have that cash flow. I think they see the new patterns that emerge and create new ones themselves and of course they have all the right materials for those flies! Good on them!

Yeah so what if a fly looks like a pink marshmallow with dysentery and is called "Pink in Heat" or some other crazy name. If it brings more fish to hand, more buyers into the shops and keeps the shops in business, I say go for it!

BTW, does anyone know where I can source pink-speckled neon-chartreuse holographic chenille that sinks? I'm working on my Scantilly Clad Amorphous Menagerie nymph. I call it the SCAM Nymph. It'll look like a leech that swallowed neon-green blood and got the runs.

..."a pink marshmallow with dysentery." "Scantilly Clad Amorphous Menagerie nymph." Good ones.

[mac7x]

Yes.

[Norm Frechette]

a box of flies that needs sorting



hairwing and featherwing streamers



steelhead and atlantic salon flies







more flies



swap flies

[WiFlyFisher]

Ed,

Trout haven't changed, nor do trout read the books or have access to the Internet. It is fly fishermen that have changed, well most of them. I am more into the actual insects and their behavior than all the new fly patterns.

That said, I am like Eric. I tie and carry what the trout are feeding on. For the past 2+ weeks somedays all I had were Trico and callibaetis nymph, dun. and spinner imitations in two small fly boxes. Other days I included a small fly box of ants and beetles. All the fly patterns are simple.

Also, what Ted said -- presentation. Maybe, that is a new book... "What Ted Said".

John

[dave potts]

Norm, Send me that top box and I will sort it for you

[abingram]

I stopped tying so many patterns and settled on a few dry flies, soft hackles, and nymphs for now. I'm sure a few streamers will come later. I haven't got very far yet but my first 2 flies are Adams dry and the pheasant tail nymph. Since I really like the old style I'm tying Adams in a spent wing like the one in Paul Young's catalog and I tye a Frank Sawyer pheasant tail nymph and a few I'll add some peacock to the thorax. To me a lot of fly tying is learning the histories of the flies. Barry

[Dave in Maine]

Ed,

I'm no marketing or fly expert but here's my opinion. I think they as much marketing ploys as the result of functional need. There's always a need for a fly to do something different, look different float or tumble on the bottom differently. Necessity is the mother of invention they say.

I couple that with the need for fly shops to stay in business. They sure aren't making consistent money off of me and probably you either, so they have to have that cash flow. I think they see the new patterns that emerge and create new ones themselves and of course they have all the right materials for those flies! Good on them!

Yeah so what if a fly looks like a pink marshmallow with dysentery and is called "Pink in Heat" or some other crazy name. If it brings more fish to hand, more buyers into the shops and keeps the shops in business, I say go for it!

BTW, does anyone know where I can source pink-speckled neon-chartreuse holographic chenille that sinks? I'm working on my Scantilly Clad Amorphous Menagerie nymph. I call it the SCAM Nymph. It'll look like a leech that swallowed neon-green blood and got the runs.

What the good doctor said. Most commercially-tied flies are tied to catch fishermen, not necessarily fish.

That having been said, I will say that flies outside the normal run of patterns - a common reason for some new variation by non-professional tyers - often tend to do a lot better than the regular patterns. A season before corona, I gave a friend a handful of exemplars I'd tied of a well-known French pattern. He proceeded to northern Maine and, after all else failed (it does happen, even with brookies) he pulled those flies out and caught the dickens out of every brook and stream he fished on the rest of his trip.

AFAIK, the three big "innovations" in fly patterns over the last 35 years were CDC, foam-bodied dries (see, e.g., Chernobyl Ant), and beadheads. I first encountered beadheads in the winter of 93, fishing the Salmon River, when the proprietor of a local fly shop went to the local superstore and bought a couple pounds of varicolored craft beads. Then he set about incorporating the beads in his ties, testing all the different colors in his nymphs. Foam bodies, I encountered a summer before or after. CDC had come along a couple years before. Yeah, the UV or superglue, but that doesn't really count to my eye.

And that pink marshmallow, fished deep, is an awesome imitation of sucker spawn.

[joaniebo]

Nope1. And there's three more Whealey boxes like those pictured, 4 or 5 large compartmentalized storge boxes plus a few small Orvis foam and two small Wheatley leaf boxes. It IS /HAS BEEN an addiction, eh?

[WiFlyFisher]

Nope1. And there's three more Whealey boxes like those pictured, 4 or 5 large compartmentalized storge boxes plus a few small Orvis foam and two small Wheatley leaf boxes. It IS /HAS BEEN an addiction, eh?

Bob,

What. no Pink Squirrels!!!!!!

John

[joaniebo]

Nope1. And there's three more Whealey boxes like those pictured, 4 or 5 large compartmentalized storge boxes plus a few small Orvis foam and two small Wheatley leaf boxes. It IS /HAS BEEN an addiction, eh?

Bob,

What. no Pink Squirrels!!!!!!

John

John

Top pic, bottom Wheatley box.

Bob

[Caneghost]

I generally ignore all of the commercial flies, magazine flies, etc. Too many seem to be of the "how many different things can I lash onto one hook" school. As Eric said I observe and copy the insects I see, modifying colors when I need to. This approach works better for the most difficult trout in particular. I strive to imitate life, and I often experiment for better ways to do that, so yes, I too carry too many flies. Don't fish anywhere near all of them though. It all depends upon what I see on the water!