Hi,

I would probably select a size 10 dry fly hook. You can always tie a smaller fly on a larger hook, so you could tie a size 14 fly on a size 10 hook and just leave a large part of the shank showing. Although I've never really done this, acording to Stewart in his book "the Practicle Angler", they still catch fish just fine! (Actually, a lot of my spiders are quite short in the body and show a lot of shank, and they work without complaint!). Anyway, since I almost never fish anything larger than a size 10, I could tie smaller patterns using this size.

The dry fly hook gives me options to fish dry fly, wet fly, and nymphs. I could add weight to a dry fly hook when tying sub-surface patterns. This is easier than getting the heavier gage wet fly/nymph hook to float for a dry fly.

A size 10 hook is large enough for lures, such as matuka style streamers, or the New Zealand Fuzzy Wuzzies and/or pukeko flies. Again, a touch of weight can be used to get them sub-surface.

- Jeff