Fly pattern master plan

[SIZE=2]I went through 7 pages looking for a thread on this and came up empty. I know that this isn’t this first thread on this subject. Still consider myself a relatively new tier even though I have been at the vise often these days.
I have certain patterns that I have faith in and those will remain in the arsenal of trout weapons, but how does one generate a master plan for patterns? Here’s what I do now and I don’t like it, not one little bit. I see something and think, that’s cool, let’s tie that. :cool: Then I see the next thing that trips my trigger and I tie that. I don’t live my life that way, but I tie like that.
I would much prefer to say that in my area I need these patterns for this season and then when I have time I work on fulfilling my requirements for the season and the targeted species I work toward the goal. A master plan where I know what I need and it is just finding the time to complete the task. I already have more flies than I will really fish so thank goodness that I have non tying friends so that I can donate to the cause and they think I am a wonderful fellow.
So do you wonder aimlessly in the forest of fly patterns and haphazardly pick patterns or do you have a master plan?
Rick
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I would answer “yes”. I make sure that I have specific flies that I know work and in which I have confidence always in my fly boxes. I make sure I have either 3 or 6 of each of these (depending on the pattern) at all times. As I learn more, new patterns are added, and rarely do old ones fall out of the line up, of course. I try to have a workable range of dries, wets, nymphs, streamers, and terrestrials. That is my master plan.

Then there are those times when I see a new (to me, at least) pattern that screams to be tied up, sometimes with no real aim in mind other than to learn to tie it. I love tying those. That would be the haphazard, or more accurately, random tying method.

I can’t imagine giving up either method.

You might look at the series by Al Campbell, takes them in sequence.

Thanks I have been reading through many of those wonderful pieces of information in the past, great resource. Should revisit them of course.

I pretty much know what I need for certain times and areas and tie to fulfill those needs. Every now and then I see a fly that will fit into those parameters and I may add them to my arsenal.

Master Plan LOL I just tie to tie. I do like getting into swaps just to be forced to learn new patterns. I live in the mid west with the nearest trout stream 3.5 hrs away so I mostly tie soft hackles and nymphs for panfish.

If I see something interesting in the fly of the week I will try to tie up a few of those.

JC, I tried to look through those articles again, and while there exists wonderful information of fly tying technique for the beginner I went through the beginner, intermediate and advanced section as well as archieves and some others in that section and saw no articles relating to or speaking to a plan on how to select patterns. Can you provide a link to what you were referencing?

Thanks

Clay,

I Googled Wisconsin Hatch Charts and found this site. http://about-flyfishing.com/cs/subject.phtml?cid=23 It seems to have guides for spring creeks that covers caddis, mayflies and midges. They cover size, color and usual time of emergence. Thery also suggest flies that can be tied to fit what is hatching.

Hope that helps.

You can try to make it the the Michigan Fish-In this year and let people far more knowledgeable than me give you pointers.
:slight_smile:

Ed

Thanks for the tips guys, Ron - you have been very helpful today on multiple levels, special thanks. I will probably try to develop my “master plan” and then still go nilly willy on what I tie. :stuck_out_tongue:

I have a few classic ‘can’t fail’ patterns, like the Pheasant-Tail Nympth, Hare’s Ear, Wooley Buggers, Clousers, etc…, but I love tying and fishing new patterns. That’s most of the fun.

In reality, you could fish anywhere in the world (in freshwater, anyway) with about 4 patterns in three sizes and be assured of catching something. But where is the fun in that?

Ron gave you great advice. If you can identify the major hatches, one way to do it is to work your way through the season, tying the early stuff first. No need to tie up grasshoppers now since you won’t need them till summer. But some good flies for early season in addition to bugs are some streamers imitating the baitfish in your streams (black nosed dace?), sculpin patterns like muddlers, and some big black stuff like marabou muddlers for high off colored water.

For each major hatch you may want to do a little research using a site like www.troutnut.com to get pics of the naturals and to get a little info on the hatch itself-- where does it occur- riffles, slow stretches etc.? what time of day? What patterns are likely to be most effective- nymphs, emergers, duns, or spinners? (Not all are as important for all hatches).

You could also cross reference the hatches on your charts with this one. It has a lot of information on it in terms of time of day, and where to find them in different stretches of streams, but you’ll want to substitute the dates for your local waters: http://charlesmeck.com/hatchchart.html

I try to knock off each major hatch in sequence starting with the nymphs, then emergers, then duns and then spinners for mayflies, ( or larva, pupae, adults for caddis, or nymph adult for stoneflies). Just to give you an idea, since I like to fish dries for a typical mayfly hatch, i usually tie more of them, so for a major hatch i might tie 12 nymphs (6 with beads, 6 w/o), 12 emergers (6 of 2 different styles) and 36 dries (12 of each of 3 different styles) and 12 spinners (6 each of 2 different styles). It helps to knock off a bunch of the same pattern, and have the materials already prepped so you can knock them out. The first year is the toughest, but after that it’s more a question of topping off during each season.

Focus on the major hatches you plan to fish, and experiment with a few different styles for each hatch- perhaps a few sparkle duns as well as some hackled patterns for the Hendricksons for example. As you start knocking off stuff for each hatch, you’ll notice that a lot of what you tie can fish for more than one thing – rusty spinners for example cover a lot of different spinner falls.

If you prioritize the major hatches first, you can add other stuff as time allows for smaller hatches, experimental flies, or tie up a bunch of extra stuff for specialized hatches like the Hex hatch if you plan to hit it hard.

mark

Willy-nilly isn’t the way to go. Find out what’s going on on the waters you fish, the timing of the hatches and use this guide as the flies to use…

http://users.myexcel.com/dolfnlvr/ You’ll come close enough for the fish to respond.

You need to do the research for your water though.

I have a master plan that has gown over the years. At first it was a list of Patterns, Colours and Sizes that had worked the previous year, with the addition of P,C,Ss, that I had read or heard that I SHOULD have, even if I had little experience or success with them. The list/plan evolved over the years with experience in fishing or in tying (or ‘near’ experience like having a friend actually have success with a pattern that I didn’t have). What I learned were three things: what flies worked for me, what flies I liked to fish (dry flies are mostly out and emergers fished downstream are in), and how I liked to tie. These are all CHOICES, and once I realized that I accepted that I bring my personality to the fishing game, and now I tie and fish for me. I tell new tiers in our fishing club that I can tie legs on a nymph 6 different ways - the fish don’t care which way I do it - so I now add legs they way I find most easy/fun/comfortable/believable, and that’s only two of the ways.
To start your plan, you of course need to recognize the hatches for the places you fish, i.e. identify the prey you are imitating. There are probably 40 ways of imitating anything. If it is a minnow for instance, you might need a whitish one and darker one. Just choose. The whiter one could be a matuka and the darker one either a matuka again or a Clouser/bucktail minnow. For THIS YEAR that’s it. Another time you can decide a zonker is better than a matuka (or whatever, because ?xx ?). That is how your plan will evolve, but for a place to start I suggest you just make some choices as to how you are going to achieve imitations of the 15 or 20 prey (species, sizes, colours) you need and tie up 8 of each.
My expectation is that you will at least approach the season with confidence in your arsenal because you will have the prey options covered, and you will have a terrific selection with which to experiment for decisions for NEXT tying season.
Sorry for the long answer - I have also sent you a PM of my fly tying plan for reference.

My master plan is to figure out where I’m going to fish the next few days, look in my fly box to be sure I have enough of the flies that I know will take fish there, and replenish the flies that are getting low ( less than 3 or 4 ), if any.

I use that master plan year round. The flies obviously change over the course of the year, but the approach is consistent.

Once in a while I see or think of a new fly that I think will work well on the streams and rivers I fish. I’ll tie a few and try it out as soon as possible. If it does well, a suitable number gets added to the fly box. If it doesn’t look like it will compete favorably with or fish better than the flies I’ve been using, it gets forgotten.

John

I think Clay’s approach is excellent. As Ron stated, look at the common hatches in Wisconsin, but… What I like about the willy-nilly part is, as Clay stated, he’s rather new to tying. He can learn quite a few different tying techniques with the willy-nilly approach. So tie a few favorite BWO, caddis, small black caddis, stimulators, buggers, PTN’s, Adams, and hex patterns, in various sizes, and then go willy-nilly.

Join a few swaps too.

[SIZE=2] The fixation on a plan becomes very real [/SIZE][SIZE=2]problem[/SIZE][SIZE=2] when you leave a box on your bench and drive for two days before you realize you have no PMD emergers[/SIZE]. At one point if I fell in the river, the steel in my boxes would have pegged me to the river floor.The plan now days is fewer flies,more cdc and rabbit. My days of fishing multiple cross hatching bugs from dawn too half past dark, are gone.if you have more than three full boxes in your vest, you need to rethink just what it is you are trying to do and if you have a spread sheet of what you have in you boxes it’s time to review your life values :slight_smile: yes, I have seen guys with Palms run excel riverside.I had two of each fly made which is always one short of what you need.

Different strokes to different folks. This is a sport, so enjoy it. If you look at pictures of members benches, you will see operating room neatness and tornado disasters. It works for them.
Regarding patterns, you will eventually discover that you use certain patterns often. You don’t want to run out of them, so periodically make sure you tie enough to last you a while. If you are of the compulsive sort, you will tie enough for the entire season. If you are the happy go lucky sort, enough for the next day or two.
I tie to fish, so if I find myself running low of a pattern, I tie up a bunch. Depending on my mood, and how many I go through it could be 5 or two dozen. I almost never do pure nymphing, but I tie more beadhead pheasant tail nymphs than any other fly because I lose more of them than my dries.
You can tie any way you want, but don’t beat yourself up over it. Life is too short for that.
Rex

Clay - I started kinda like you did. Mostly because a big part of my motivation to start tying was because the shop doesn’t (and can’t) carry everything. I’d see a fly in a magazine that I’d like to try, but couldn’t find any. I found that at first tying all over like that I couldn’t hit my marks and had a lot of sloppy looking flies (that somehow still caught fish). But as an engineer I don’t like sloppiness, so I went back and tied up tons of the flies I used most often.

Gave a bunch away and got a lot better, though I’m definitely still not a pro. Now I can tie up a half dozen of something new and do a reasonable job. That may be a reasonable approach for you to try.

I try to get the hatch chart for the stream I am going to fish , figure out what month I am going to fish it and then prep me fly box for that stream. Most stream hatch charts can be found online.I had the same problem tiying everything that I thought was cool looking and my friends ended up with alot of flies. :smile: and I had more fly tying material than my tying station could handle.

Keep your waders wet and your lines tight.