chuckle
This posting is triggered by the varied responses to the OneFly contest thread.
Running down the list of offerings, few if any, appear to take into account where and under which conditions the proposed fly will be fished. Does that indicate we are a slave to our confidence in a pattern to the extent that we do not care when or where we fish, we tie on the same fly anyway?
Cheers,
Hans W
=== You have a friend in Low Places ===
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Hans,
Ouch!! Surely you can’t be suggesting that we humans, those at the top of the food chain, could be so set in our ways. LOL!
How many times have I headed for the river knowing absolutely what the fish would be feeding on? More than I care to admit!
What really upsets me is when someone actually catches a lot offish using the wrong techniques or fly. Why didn’t he ask me first, then he could have had an almost fishless day like I did.
This should be a great thread.
baldmidge
Yes, frequently. I think especially when we are fishing unfamiliar waters. LIke all animals we like to be “comfortable”. Like certain foods, there are flies we have that are our “comfort flies”. Also, I think we resort to certain go-to flies because they conjure up old and good memories of fish caught and good times!
Hmmm, let me see what would Hans’ comfort fly be ? G Perhaps it is something that looks like an emerging whatever, a dun, a caddis, perhaps a small stonefly or hopper… Hmmm what would that be LOL
Peter
Now that I have read now the onefly thread, I guess I have the answer to my question, Hans. G
Hans,
Been tying a number of CDC&Elk and DHE to use on the rivers this season. Why restrict yourself to one fly when you can confuse yourself with two!
Plan on some very unscientific experiments on the dryfly only part of the season on the Upper Avon.
JME
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I guess I’m odd in that I do make an attempt to figuer out what I think the fish are feeding on and mimic that in some way (when fishigng for resident stream trout)…not always with a precise imitation, but at least something close. Meaning: I think a PT nymph is a good rep when baetis and Ephemeralla nymphs are common…although I do carry more exacting pattern when BD is a factor.
Thus, I could not say today what my one-fly fly of choice would be until I could assess water, weather and hatch conditions. I can promise it would not be a dry fly, nor would I be fishing tight to the bottom. Oh yeah…it would be durable! My gut reaction is a streamer of some type fished up in the column on heavy tippet…
Han’s that is why people can’t get me to commit to one pattern. I guided to much to get hooked into the “one pattern is the best” type of thing. I learned to get to the river and let it tell me what I should be using. In the one fly I think that is the only fly that you can have in the boat? So I would guess you would have to pick your fly awhile before you start fishing? Not something I like to do. Even though I can make a good guess at what might work I just hate to do that until I have seen what is going on. I guess it is just knowing the water that you are going to fish and what hatch is coming off and what will be happening that day if it is sunny or raining and so on. Time on the water makes that all a lot easier.
It would also be hard for someone from another area to pick a good fly for the river the one fly is fished on if they had not fished it before. Ron
[This message has been edited by RonMT (edited 13 April 2005).]
Hans,
I think the operative word in your query was ‘confidence’. Too many times I’ve seen the ‘wrong’ fly fished confidently to success.
And, while I understand that there are those who can approach a body of water, look carefully at the conditions, and confidently decide that the fish are taking a particualr insect, I doubt there are many of them.
For the rest of us, it’s lucky that our quarry has brain the size of a pea, can’t actually ‘think’ as we know the term, and is, in reality, pretty easy to ‘fool’. Otherwise, only a very few of us would EVER catch a fish.
Confidence is, in my estimation, much more important for the angler than fly selection.
Thank God trout are dumb…
Good Luck!
Buddy
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RonMT,
It would also be hard for someone from another area to pick a good fly for the river the one fly is fished on if they had not fished it before.
OMG I am in trouble! 
All my stream fishing involves significant travel (the bane of a stream addict living in a country without gradient), and more often than not I end up fishing a stream or river I have not visited and fished before. Maybe that is why I do best fishing a fly which looks like nothing in particular, and the fish mostly humor me. Or is that pity me?
I will have to seek help…
Hans
running&ducking
=== You have a friend in Low Places ===
http://www.danica.com/flytier
Less see Hans? How many countrys and areas of the US have you fished “IN”. Big difference in someone that lives in the east and has never fished the Snake River before. I am not knocking anyone here but I do not think of the Snake and midges in the same thought and some have said that is the fly they would use. Not sayint at times they don’t work well there just that it is not a normal fly that I would use as a first choice on that river.
Buddy I have seen just the opposite happen many times to. It just depend on the stream or river fished. I have guided a lot of tail waters and spring creeks. And at times if you do not have the right fly you will walk away talking to yourself. But I have also caught good fish on a Royal Wulf right in the middle of a great PMD hatch. It is up to the fish. Even though they have a small brain at times they make us look like we have an even smaller one. Ron
RonMT,
Less see Hans? How many countrys and areas of the US have you fished “IN”.
Hmmm… lessee… your side of the Big Pond a quick count gives me 18 states in the lower 48, plus Alaska. Four provinces north of the border.
Hans W
=== You have a friend in Low Places ===
http://www.danica.com/flytier
Wise Arse LOL 
Ron
Sometimes one can get conditioned to conditions. On a recent trip to a familiar river (winter conditions), I was loaded for midge. Even rigged up at the truck. (Knew better). As soon as I hit the water, there were risers everywhere. Baetis not midges. Not the end of the world, because I had the right fly in my box.
I was conditioned to thinking “foot of snow on the bank, must be midges”
Two weeks previously it was only midges.
Funny thread in a way. Can’t speak much in the way for trout since we don’t have any, with the spotted species being either crappies or channel cats, I would almost guess that 90 percent of the time I find myself changing the initial fly I tye on. Usually it is one of two or three I will still use in the outing, but for whatever reason it is usually clipped after several casts. JGW
I tend to tie on the same orange and white yak hair Clouser whenever fishing home saltwater flats. I’ve been reasonably successful with this fly. So it is a comfort factor I use to begin the day’s fishing as well as a heavy fly useful to remind my muscles what I expect them to do.
I am planning a trout trip for this summer. I’ve been in contact with the local gentleman who will guide me one day and impart local knowledge. He’s suggested those flies he believes will be most effective, and I’m tying them. However, I’m also tying up a batch of Lime Trude’s, some CDC&Elk, and a raft of Wulff’s. Not so much comfort flies as flies that look like they should work.
Most flies probably appeal at least as much to the fisher as the fish.
aka Cap’n Yid.
Stev Lenon, 91B20’68-'69
When the dawn came up like thunder