Sitting on the yellow breeches last week after losing my beetle in the mouth of a nice brown, I pulled out my fly box and was shocked at the motley assortment of flies I have (which arose out of years of filling little plastic cups in random fly shops throughout the east (NY, PA, CT) to get the “hot fly” and more often to turn the shopowner a little more talkative.
Anyway, I realized that I need to beef up my foundation of flies (I fish 'em all, nymphs, dries, wets, streamers) so that I know if I hit any river here in the northeast I will have something right.
So I have two questions:
fly suggestions for a “complete” N.Eastern fly selection, four seasons, all types (I fish, croton watershed, catskills, delaware river (w. branch), Long Island, a little in Pennsylvania and connecticut).
since these will be a lot of flies, but I want good quality, suggestions for where to get what I need (my tying skills or nowhere near up to par for this).
Have a fly swap type donation thing. You’ll “swap” a dollar plus the cost of materials and shipping for a dozen flies. Post the request and continue when you have enough people willing to tie up some flies for you.
Of course, this could be some violation of the rules, honestly, I didn’t read them all. But it sounds like a pretty good win/win way to get a collection going for a relatively small price.
Two suggestions, first look at the Orvis 20 flies for $10 and see what they included, I believe it is their 10 most popular flies. Second, you are on Long Island from November until ??? the weather is probably going to keep you from fishing much locally. Get to tying, your skills will improve with practice and fish are predators they go after cripples, most of my flies look pretty lame. You will never get better getting someone else to tye your flies. Find someone in the neighborhood who teaches tying.
Al Campbell did a 60-part series on dressing fly patterns, that is divided into three sections, “Beginning Fly Tying” - “Intermediate Fly Tying” -“Advanced Fly Tying”. Al Campbell past away a few years back, but he left us a treasure on fly tying lessons, as well as lessons on how to building your own fly rod.
Al was my mentor in all the above, and I missed him still…
PS: If you send me a email either private message on this bulletin board or by email , I will send you a free CD (no cost to you) of every fly pattern that has ever run on FAOL.