Eroksolfe
Active Member
'Short' Background story to this post:
Recently spent a long weekend fishing in CO. Went to the Gunnison, Taylor, Colorado and Eagle rivers. Though I have hundreds of dollars of flies in my boxes, I ended up buying new flies in different fly shops for each river. Couldn't shake the feeling of needed to find "THE fly" for each river. The final day on the Eagle was slow and I ended up talking to a very generous guide. He gave me what he called a "Thread Frenchie". It looked like nothing to me but I tied it on and immediately hooked several fish. "ah ha! I thought, this is "THE fly" for this river." Then I watched the tying video and I was perplexed -- it was so simple and didn't really match anything.
Fast forward a week, I was perusing the forum and ran into a post by @KillerDave that spoke to me -
“About 10 years ago I started fishing with a guy who didn't tie his own flies and thus grouped his nymphs by size & shade rather than specific pattern. He caught more fish than anyone so I adopted his approach and it's worked out pretty well. For instance, if you need a smallish dark shaded nymph, a pheasant tail is a good choice. If you need a big fat stonefly, PT's kinda suck.”
Boom. Long overdue lightening bolt to my fly fishing brain.
My search for "THE fly pattern" has grown my fly tying arsenal to an unmanageable level…and it still seems like each time I want to tie a new pattern, I'm missing something. "How can this be?" ! I think to myself. Something has to change!
So this leads me to the purpose of this post. I'm looking to simplify my fly boxes down to 1 (maaaybe 2) patterns to represent each life cycle of the various insects. My priorities are 1) fish catchability 2) ease / simplicity to tie 3) flexibility to mimic other bugs 4) common materials.
I'm looking for recommendations on "guide flies" that y'all like in each category:
Caddis - larva, puppa, emerger, adult, spinner
Mayfly - nymph, emerger, adult, spinner
Midge - larva, adult, adult bundle
Stone fly - nymph, adult (maybe spinner)
Terrestrial - hopper, stimulator pattern
a few of the patterns I like already - Thread Frenchie style nymphs, Pats Rubber legs, Elk hair caddis, CDC emerger patterns
thanks forum!
Recently spent a long weekend fishing in CO. Went to the Gunnison, Taylor, Colorado and Eagle rivers. Though I have hundreds of dollars of flies in my boxes, I ended up buying new flies in different fly shops for each river. Couldn't shake the feeling of needed to find "THE fly" for each river. The final day on the Eagle was slow and I ended up talking to a very generous guide. He gave me what he called a "Thread Frenchie". It looked like nothing to me but I tied it on and immediately hooked several fish. "ah ha! I thought, this is "THE fly" for this river." Then I watched the tying video and I was perplexed -- it was so simple and didn't really match anything.
Fast forward a week, I was perusing the forum and ran into a post by @KillerDave that spoke to me -
“About 10 years ago I started fishing with a guy who didn't tie his own flies and thus grouped his nymphs by size & shade rather than specific pattern. He caught more fish than anyone so I adopted his approach and it's worked out pretty well. For instance, if you need a smallish dark shaded nymph, a pheasant tail is a good choice. If you need a big fat stonefly, PT's kinda suck.”
Boom. Long overdue lightening bolt to my fly fishing brain.
My search for "THE fly pattern" has grown my fly tying arsenal to an unmanageable level…and it still seems like each time I want to tie a new pattern, I'm missing something. "How can this be?" ! I think to myself. Something has to change!
So this leads me to the purpose of this post. I'm looking to simplify my fly boxes down to 1 (maaaybe 2) patterns to represent each life cycle of the various insects. My priorities are 1) fish catchability 2) ease / simplicity to tie 3) flexibility to mimic other bugs 4) common materials.
I'm looking for recommendations on "guide flies" that y'all like in each category:
Caddis - larva, puppa, emerger, adult, spinner
Mayfly - nymph, emerger, adult, spinner
Midge - larva, adult, adult bundle
Stone fly - nymph, adult (maybe spinner)
Terrestrial - hopper, stimulator pattern
a few of the patterns I like already - Thread Frenchie style nymphs, Pats Rubber legs, Elk hair caddis, CDC emerger patterns
thanks forum!