I spoke of a limited dubbing selection briefly in another thread where Mike Lawson stated that he ties his flies in basically four colors to represent the Mayfly Duns. To refresh your memory the colors were Olive, Tan, Pale Yellow and Slate.

Joe Humphreys too made a statement that he ties his dryflies in black, dark brown, gray and sulphur in his book Trout Tactics.

In another book titled Flyfishing The Tailwaters by Ed Engle, he too supports a philosphy very similar to Mike Lawson's. When discussing colors of nymphs he speaks of focusing on tans, browns, olives and black. He does leave latitude for scuds, worms, freaky bugs and regional variations but again, he emphasizes basic color selections in a range of sizes.

All and all this brings me to emphasis of this thread. Joe Humphreys as most of you know is an exceptional angler or atleast he is perceived that way by those of us who have witnessed his tv appearances, videos and books.

After reading a chapter on nymph design and imitation I was really focused on a statement that he essentially ties his nymphs on a single hook style, the Mustad 9671. He did mention that for night fishing, he used a Salmon type hook in about a size 1 to 2/0 on which he dressed his wetflies. I believe it was Mustad 36890.

We all know that there are a myriad of hook styles, sizes and companies in the marketplace.

My question is two-fold.

1) Are you the type of flyfisher on ties on a limited number of models of hooks and concentrates more on the fishing game itself?

and if not

2) Do you think that a person can who ties on two or maybe three hook models can experience as much success as the guy who ties on an unlimited palate?

I would really like to hear your comments on this as I know Trout Tactics was written many years ago and things change over the course of time. I don't know Joe Humphreys personally but somehow I would think he sticks pretty close to this baseline philosophy of simplicity and function!

[This message has been edited by RkyMtnGuy (edited 09 September 2005).]