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.

Ed