Take the time to chime in on what are your favorite go to flies either during a hatch or non-hatch period. Covering from midges to attractor patterns.
Mayfly Nymph: Hares Ear or Pheasanttails
Mayfly Emerger: DOA Dun or Foam Emerger
Mayfly Dun: Sparkle Dun, No Hackle or Parachute
Mayfly Spinner: Foam Spinner
Don’t have one I let the fish and the stream tell me what I will use when I get there. Things change and I believe that people would catch more fish if they had faith in there ability to know what is going on and what to use. Granted you can use any fly and catch fish and you will fish a favorite fly harder but you will catch more fish by fishing what the fish want than what you like. Ron
Welcome back Ron. It’s good to see you posting a little more and that some things never change.
I gotta ask though…I know you believe in the KISS thing…but if you are going to let the fish tell you what they want… How many flies do you have to take with you.
Ron, you make a good point but what if you want to just carry a few flies?
[For those of you that haven’t seen previous threads… you will never never get Ron to tell you what fly he would tie on first…] I …and I’m not the only one… keep thinking there’s got to be a way of wording the hypothetical but he’s just to clever.
ducksterman- For many years I used Mustad hooks with a few Partridge hooks thrown in. In those hooks my maine styles were
94840 Dry Fly Hooks
3906 for wets and some nypmhs
9672 or the # 79580 for streamers and nypmhs
That was about it for Mustad. I did use a few others but those were the maine hooks I used.
Now days I use a lot of Dai-Riki hooks. For a couple of reasons. One they are a good hook. Two they have a great price point for a wholesale tier. And three I live about a mile from the wholesale wearhouse for Dai-Riki and Dan Bailey’s and can pick them up in just a few minutes if need be.
I use the #320 for my Dryflies. I used the #305 until the #320 came out this past year. I still have a few #305 left but can use them for myself. I buy all of my hooks by the thousand. Much better buy that way.
I use the #700 as a streamer hook
The #125 as an Emerger hook
The #135 as a scud hook
The #060 as a Nymph hook.
I also use the saltwater hooks and Salmon hooks when orders come up for those types of flies. I still use the Mustad Saltwater hooks for a lot of those types of flies also. I have added a few hook styles over the years as more patterns have come out using a few different styls of hooks so you have to go along.
I can’t tell you what fly I will have on tomorrow if I go fishing but I can tell you that I tied on a small Beatis Nymph the last time I fished. That was the first fly I tied on. The reason for it was that I knew a beatis hatch was going to be starting and I was able to take several nice fish on it before the hatch started. I then tied on a Parachute Olive Adams. I did very well with that fly to cover the hatch. Two styles of flies were used and some very nice fish were taken. I had to replace a few of the dry flies as the fish mangled them and I lost one in a whitfish that had it to deep. I took 4 whitefish and I can’t tell you how many trout? But enough to have had a very good evenings fishing. The largest ? Don’t know I didn’t measure any of them I never do. But I had a couple of good ones.
I think knowing what is going on at the time you are fishing is the most important thing you can know about fishing the day you are on the stream. There are Hatch charts for most streams and just looking at one and knowing the time of year will get you started. Is it going to be nasty or raining? If so look for the little beatis. They come off all year long on days like that or late in the evening out here. I also carry a samll close mesh net like you buy for your fish bowl. I can hold it in the water and sample what might be going on and yes it is big enough to do that. I do not like kicking up the bottom and gathering nymphs. I think it is not good for the stream if to many do it. I can understand do it in a class but not everyone doing it. I might pick up a rock and you can learn all you need by doing that. One or two rocks should tell you enough to get you started for the day or evenings fishing.
Ron