New Flies???

Didn’t want to ‘hijack’ my own thread…and this may deserve it’s own, anyway…

Herefishy had great question:

“Brings up a question - do the “latest and greatest” flies hot off the Umpqua or MFC vises catch more fish? Do fish get tired of the “old reliables”? Or do you just keep catching the same fish with the same flies?”

My answer is ‘yes’ new flies catch more fish and ‘yes’ you can keep catching the same fish with the same old flies.

Here’s how I see it, from a fly tyers perspective. I don’t buy flies, but I tie LOTS of them.

When I tie flies, I’m not just tying by ‘rote’ to fill my boxes. I don’t always tie the same patterns that may have worked in the past, nor do I ignor what has been succcessful.

I look at what I want a fly to ‘do’ and I try to optomize that fly so that it does that particular ‘job’ as well as I can make it do so.

When I come across new materials, I look at them to see if they can enhance existing flies, or help me create new ones to fill a percieved need or niche in my arsenal. Sometimes I come up with a ‘better’ option for a certain fly, and end up replacing it, sometimes I come up with a ‘modification’ that I believe in, and thus tie all successive fles of that type with the ‘new’ modification (just came up with a significant change to a muddler that I really like…).

Thus, I know that my flies are constantly evolving. Are the new ones ‘better’? Of course they are. That’s the point. Will they catch more fish? I have to think so, otherwise, why do it? Who decides? For me, I do. Until, of course, the fish tell me different ;).

I have some older tying/pattern books, and I can see the same process occuring with some of these. Even the same ‘book’ by the same author, just a new ‘edition’ can show drastic changes in fly selections.

Are you ‘outgunned’ if you don’t have the ‘latest and greatest’ flies? I doubt it. We are talking about FISH here. They aren’t that smart.

Buddy

look no further than craig matthews and blue ribbon flies for evidence of your premise.

from the serendipity he developed or refined if you will and came up w/ the crystal serendipity and the three dollar dip. from the comparadun to the sparkle done to the improved sparkle dun. likewise w/ ehc to x-caddis to improved x caddis. I’d wager that those refinements came about in exactly the manner you describe.

I don’t see that new flies catch more fish, mainly because I still fish the ones that were working for me ten or twenty years ago. They are still catching fish, but when they stop doing that, I will try a new one. Just one.

New and improved is, to me, maybe 5% useful and 95% hype.

Most flies aren’t designed to catch fish, they are designed to catch fisherman. And the market always needs something new for us to spend money on.

and I still don’t have any of yer flies. though I do tie a few.

I fish a lot with 4 or 5 “go to” patterns, but if I just tied those, I’d go crazy. At the bench, I like trying different things and just having a good variety. Sometimes after catching a bunch of fish on one fly, I switch and see if they’ll hit something totally different.

To me, it’s not necessarily “improved” as much as “different”.

One comment not yet made here is that the fish are getting so used to some go-to patterns that new variations are justified. But that is assuming you are always fishing for the same fish. He might be getting pretty old by now.
I do subscribe to design refinements that may have demonstrable results but it is getting out of control now. Today, material promoters try to market trivial variations of their “plastic hair” and “sparkle strips”. These are immediately followed by their competitors promoting the same variations of the same stuff but with a different name. In the past you couldn’t do this with natural materials. Muskrat fur was muskrat fur.
On the other side of the coin are the improvements in genetic hackles. Sure, a Grizzly hackle is just that but look at all the factors that make them better for tying dry flies. But then, I can’t easily find properly shaped streamer feathers any more.
I guess we have to chalk everything up to progress.

I won’t mention his name, but there was a gentleman who had a regular column in a popular magazine where he tied some very artistic and creative flies, often from unusual materials.
It use to drive me nutz when he would often state that most of these flies had never been fully tested and sometimes never even been fished before being published.
And I often see the same sort of thing here

Time tested flies are just that. Many have been tweaked and improved over years if not decades, not just by the originator, but by hundreds if not thousands of other tyers.

I think many experienced anglers can look at a fly and recognize characteristics that will make it a superior or just an average fly. Others seem to be drawn to flies that different, flashy and new.
New can be better if it’s well thought out, but I think that just as often, new is just new

Let the buyer (and tier) beware

I will say that some new materials are like new waders that don’t leak - they make fishing more fun - like wing and post materials for parachutes that show up more clearly without scaring the fish appreciably. And I fished a PMD with the hackle pulled over the top more successfully than the one wound around the fly. But the little extended body mayflies with the bodies that arch up, I just can’t duplicate them, and they are deadly.

I did an experiment about six or seven years ago, whereby(for the whole year) I fished no fly that hadn’t been around by the time of the second world war. I doubled my catch rate over previous few years. Partly this was because I was fishing more wet flies vs. nymphs and dries (thus putting the fly more where fish wanted it) and partly because flies that have been catching fish for decades are of proven value.

Of all the new flies that are being pushed each year, a small few will prove to be of real value – somebody mentioned Craig Matthews, and he’s proved to remarkably successful in this – but most are just to catch fisherman rather than fish.

New is seldom better. Nevertheless, I can’t discount the possibility that it is on occasion.

I like to use both old patterns, and new ones. Sometimes fish strike at something they’ve seen before. Sometimes I think they are in a finicky mood and something new just may be the ticket. :wink:

Some waters, like my favorite little stream gets fished heavily. And I think they see the same known standard flies over and over and over again.

Sometimes I think they will hit a new fly just because they have never seen one before…

I am still quite a rookie at fly tying. I tried to remember how someone showed how to tie a semi seal leech…with a dubbing loop. I botched it royal. If anyone can mess up a leech…
Anywhooo…in frustration I just tied it off. It had an inch of semiseal sticking straight up like a parachute.

Friend Ken and I were getting skunked and I threw the abortion of a fly out there. A 19" female simply hammered that fly! As soon as it hit the water BLAM. She took it viciously.

Why? I dunno. But I think sometimes a fly that fish have never seen will entice them to strike.

Truth be told, all you really need to catch fish is a couple of Adams dries, a few Pheasant Tail, or Hare’s Ear Nympths, some Wooley Buggers and a couple of Clouser Minnows, and you can catch just about anything that swims, anywhere in the world, at least in fresh water.

You could also live on bologna and water for a long time…but who wants to???

Variety is the spice of life (within reason).

I seriously doubt that new flies catch more than older flies all else equal.

The advantages, to my mind, of new flies is the use of new materials which make a fly easier to tie, increase durability, and/or increase floatation (in the case of dries).