Fly Choice

[munro]

I would be interested to know how others actually decide which fly to fish . OK I know temperature, height and colour of water etc. need to be taken into account but these will presumably only give a rough guide. What is the thought process thereafter. What makes you chose one pattern and size over another -is it just a stab in the dark or is it some sort of intuition or do you just like the look of that fly.And when do you decide that that one should be changed for something else -after an hour, 4 hours or what?

[macd]

munro said:

I would be interested to know how others actually decide which fly to fish . OK I know temperature, height and colour of water etc. need to be taken into account but these will presumably only give a rough guide. What is the thought process thereafter. What makes you chose one pattern and size over another -is it just a stab in the dark or is it some sort of intuition or do you just like the look of that fly.And when do you decide that that one should be changed for something else -after an hour, 4 hours or what?

much of it is down to experience munro-no simple answer...but you are close with a 'stab in the dark' and 'intuition'........throw in desparation and you're there ;D

sometimes a change of fly might pep you up if things are slow, this might improve your casting, concentrartion etc and your chances.

but dont get 'flyitis'.........tis a terrible curse.

........the only thing more fickle than salmon are salmon fishers staring at their fly box.

tight lines

macd

[charlieh]

It's a difficult question to give a straight answer to, but so long as you're in the right ball park, I think fly selection comes down to confidence rather than hard evidence of success. Can any of us put our hands on our hearts and say that we caught a particular fish because we were using a particular fly pattern, and that another fly, fished in exactly the same way, wouldn't have succeeded? Yet you will fish much better if you have absolute confidence in your fly - if you don't think you're going to catch a fish you probably won't.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the most important thing to look at is previous catches. If you arrive at a beat on a Monday morning and the gillie tells you that the previous week's fish were all taken on a size 8 Ally's Shrimp, you'd be foolish not to pay some attention to this (always assuming that catches the previous week were more or less what the should have been, given conditions, time of year, fish stocks etc). Or if you've previously caught fish on that river at that time of year, that should give you a benchmark (though obviously conditions may not be the same). But that doesn't mean that you can't fish a size 10 Cascade, or a 3/4" Pot Bellied Pig tube rather than a #8 Ally's, if you have confidence in it. That's what I mean by being in the right ball park. But under those circumstances I wouldn't start out with a 2" brass tube, or a 1/2" minitube!

If you don't have a gillie or other source of recent information, you need to establish what is the 'norm' for your particular river before making your initial selection. For example, fly sizes in Ireland tend to be smaller than in Scotland. On the little rivers I fish on the West coast of Ireland, even in the biggest spate I rarely use a fly of more than about 1.25" overall length, yet in similar rivers on the West coast of Scotland in similar conditions you might fish a fly with an overall length of 2.5". And I remember someone arriving to fish the Wye and insisting on using a polyleader and 1.25" tube because that's what worked on his home river at that time of year, when a #10 Usk Grub fished in the top three inches of water would have been the norm for the Wye at that time.

Once I'm confident I'm in the right ball park, I'm not a great one for changing the fly during a day's fishing unless there is good reason (eg if water conditions change, or if I want to fish deeper/shallower). Provided that I'm not doing significantly worse than other fishers I could fish for days on end with the same fly so long as it didn't fall to bits or end up in a tree.

Having said all that, there are times when it might pay to change your tactics radically. This is more true when you are fishing over a pool with few or no fresh fish coming in, and where the residents may have seen a succession of #8 Ally's Shrimps passing over their head. But note that I said 'tactics' rather than 'fly'. I think you're more likely to provoke a response from a different fly fished differently, than from a different fly fished in the same way.

[munro]

Some facinating insights . I take the point about "flyitis" a condition from which I have been know to suffer at times.
I also see the point which Charlie H makes about having confidence in the fly. I caught my first (and only fish) at the back end on Tweed following Graham's advice and switching to a light fly (#8) rather than the lump of brass I had been chucking around for two days. That fly was a cascade - a fly in which I now have total confidence.
On the other hand I have a number of Ally's which I have used unsuccessfully and have now no wish to. They just don't inspire me - they look far too solid with that wing - I can't see that they look very attractive in the water. Maybe its just the way that these (all from the same source are tied) as I know that some people swear by this pattern.
So all other things being equal its likely to be a Cascade of some sort for me although I can't wait to try the Nessc!

[flybox]

graham said:

Basically I look at [long list] Then I will pick something which I have found to be successful under those set of conditions in the past. /quote]

Wow, that's incredibly prescriptive. Is it really as easy and defined as that? Or is the reason that a particular fly always works under a set of circumstances that it is the fly that is generally advised to be chosen under those circumstances?

Does that Jock Scott really require a bit of Dodo wing- without which the fish just will not look at it?

It's a really fascinating topic this, and one that I suspect people devote too much time to worrying about.

[hadrian]

flybox,i admire your style and understand your motives,for an answer to your question, you could give the C.L.A.I.R organization a nudge.

good luck,

hadrian.

[flybox]

Eh? Hadrian, that's gone completely over my head!