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