Match the hatch math

I am tying flies getting ready to go on a trip home to Colorado in a couple of weeks, and as I have been busily filling fly boxes I got to thinking about how difficult all of this must be for someone just getting into the sport.

If you read one of any number of books on fly fishing you will be told that you must have a fly to match each size, life stage and color variation of every insect that you are likely to find on the water.

Well, I will be fishing the Arkansas River in Colorado in a couple of weeks, and there are 3 kinds of mayflies possible at this time of the year ( 4 if you count the possible Grey Drakes) BWO, PMD, and Red Quils in a range of sizes from 26 - 12 although at this time of year we can realisticaly cut that down to 20 - 14 just to be nice. And you will need a nymph, dun, emerger and spinner for each one. Luckily pheasant tails and rusty spinners will cover most of these with a single pattern.

There are at least 2 species of caddis likely to be found (though if you check some hatch charts you will find as many as 5 or 6) You will surely need a pupa and an adult of each of these in 2 or 3 sizes, and if you are reading closely you better have a larva too.

Then of course their are the stone flies. Yellow Sallies and Golden Stones are both possible this time of year, so we had better have at least an adult and a nymph for each of these.

We are going to ignore the terestrials, and those darn midges just to keep our poor newbe from going nuts.

Being conservitive I count at least 67 distinct types of flyes needed to cover all your bases.
So 67 paterns and sizes x 3 flies (one for the tree, one to break off on a fish, and one to fish with) x 1.75 per fly = $351.75 .

No wonder some people are so intimidated to try fly fishing, you need 200 flies before you even hit the water.

I know I had better get back to my bench I have about 100 flies left to tie.

:cool: Ed

Ed -

ABSOLUTELY loved your post !!

When I thought about taking fly fishing just five years ago, I almost didn't because it seemed overwhelming, for exactly the point you made, to also include all the discussions about gear - rods, reels, lines, leader, tippets, indicators, split shot, so on and so forth.

The only way I could get into it was to KEEP IT SIMPLE. I think maybe it takes more work to do than that than pursue the angle you've described so well. But it kept me at fly fishing long enough that I could start to deal with the complexities ( mostly a matter of our imagination and creativity, I think ) and learn to come up with simple patterns that work for most situations.

Anyway, thanks for the lesson in "matching the hatch." Or, you can just get a simple streamer that rides high in the water column and strip it through most any hatch with some really interesting results !!

John

That's one big number. I just pack 1 box with an assortment of whats on stream ( plentiful) maybe 75 flies. Then I also pack about 300 prayers of assorted types, this is usually good for a couple days.;)

Ed -

I forgot to mention - the streamer I had in mind, a simple pine squirrel zonker baitfish / sculpin pattern costs about $.40 to make, takes about four minutes, and will last through several hatches, assuming, say fifteen fish per hatch fished.

John

Amazingly, after 32 years, I catch 95% of my fish on a dozen patterns. Like I have always done. And the "you gotta do it this way" arguments such as the precise matching of hatch and life stage and anatomical features of a 1/4 inch bug fail for me since I still catch fish, more than my share in most cases. If you try to make this sport rocket science, all you do is make it harder on yourself and easier on the fish.

My immodest $.05 (adjusted for gas prices).

Dennis

Funny, I don't seem to have anywhere near that number of flies. But I do tie a number of different sizes and colors that are close enough to get by. Fish seem to be okay with that.


Bob

I vacillate between carrying every fly I can possibly stuff into my vest, and only taking what I can put in a Altoids tin.

You can certainly effectively fish the Arkansas with about 6 or 7 patterns and just a couple of sizes of each, and I think I could keep up with most people with about 4 patterns. A #16 Renegade, A # 18 Parachute grey hackle Yellow, A 16 peacock and partridge Soft hackle, and a #18 pheasant tail nymph.

John,
I love the streamer during a hatch idea. I haven't done much fishing for trouts with zonkers but I will have to give it a try.

I am just amused at our human inclination to make things harder than they are ?both for our selves, and especially as we explain it to the outside world. Having more options doesn?t make fly fishing easier (as the fly fishing masters would have us believe) it makes it harder. If I?m a beginner, there is no way I am going to know which one or 3 flies out of 70 to tie on and fish.

You remember all those brainy kids you and I used to kick around the play ground? They (we) all became computer programmers and intentionally made computers seem dark and mysterious. We (they) wrote manuals that were intentionally unintelligible. They even put keys on the key board - - that don?t do anything! Just to get back at us for making their lives hell in Jr. High.

I think there is just a bit of this in fly fishing too.

Ed