Newbie Question: How many fly sizes & colors to tie for next season?
 

"Julie" wrote in message
...

the even better news:
Some fisherman just say phoeey to the whole match the hatch business and
only use two flies, a size 16 adams and a size 12 prince nymph. And
they do well too.

Beware of the man of one fly.

Wolfgang
with apologies to tom aquinas.

Newbie Question: How many fly sizes & colors to tie for next season?
 

"Julie" wrote in message
...

the even better news:
Some fisherman just say phoeey to the whole match the hatch business and
only use two flies, a size 16 adams and a size 12 prince nymph. And
they do well too.


You also might want to keep this in mind when selecting flies to use.
In order:
1. First think size
2. Then pattern
3. Then color
-tom

Newbie Question: How many fly sizes & colors to tie for next season?
 

On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 13:37:56 +0000, mdk77 wrote:

As some of you already know, this is my first season of fly fishing.
I tie my own flies so I'm beginning to put together a list of flies to
tie over the winter, for next season. So far I have a list of 25
patterns that I'd like to fish next year. This is a lot compared with
what I tied for my first season this year (I had about 10 patterns
that a local fisherman recommended for my area, and they were very
effective for me). For this past season, I tied roughly two sizes and
two colors of most of these patterns, and tried to tie 6-12 of each
variation.

I realize this is a general question and that patterns may vary the
answer - but - in general, how many sizes of a given pattern should I
tie? An example would be an adult midge pattern in sizes 20-28 or a
given nymph in sizes 16 to 28 -- how many sizes would be adequate to
populate my boxes for the season? I did the math and about stroked
out at the number of flies I would have to tie to do ALL of the sizes
for ALL of the 25 flies. Especially since I am a slow tier at this
point in my experience .... I think I'd die of old age before I got em
all tied :-)

Thanks in advance for any help that you can give me on this.

- Dave K.

I'm certainly no expert, and am quite new to the sport myself; but what
I've read would indicate to me that it's going to matter where you fish.
There are, for example, books on fly fishing in Yellowstone and fly
fishing in Idaho which describe which patterns are more popular in those
areas.

Newbie Question: How many fly sizes & colors to tie for next season?
 

In article , Tom Nakashima
wrote:


You also might want to keep this in mind when selecting flies to use.
In order:
1. First think size
2. Then pattern
3. Then color
-tom

I think that this, like most of the things I've read on this thread, is
very good advice.

My suspicion is that, after going through the process that Wolfgang
described (I wouldn't try to avoid this - I think it's inevitable) that
you will end up with something around a dozen flies. Maybe six or eight
that you tend to pick first, and another six or eight that you have
with you because you know that sooner or later you're going to need
them.

From time to time, though, you'll call on all that knowledge you gained
when learning to tie flies, and think of the possibility that what you
really need is something that you once knew about, and even used to
fish with, and it did qute well at the time.

You can only be happy with those dozen when you know you have lots of
possibilities to fall back on.

And the only way to find out what those dozen are is the long process
of trying them out for yourself.

This is the fun of the thing

Lazarus

Newbie Question: How many fly sizes & colors to tie for next season?
 

"Lazarus Cooke" wrote in message
news:121020072114288918%lazaruscooke@britishlibrar y.invalid...


From time to time, though, you'll call on all that knowledge you gained
when learning to tie flies, and think of the possibility that what you
really need is something that you once knew about, and even used to
fish with, and it did qute well at the time.

A most peculiar and annoying phenomenon. There are several patterns I used
to rely on quite heavily because they were very successful. Then they
stopped working pretty much entirely. I still carry them. Some day......

Wolfgang

Newbie Question: How many fly sizes & colors to tie for next season?
 

On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 13:37:56 -0000, mdk77
wrote:

As some of you already know, this is my first season of fly fishing.
I tie my own flies so I'm beginning to put together a list of flies to
tie over the winter, for next season. So far I have a list of 25
patterns that I'd like to fish next year. This is a lot compared with
what I tied for my first season this year (I had about 10 patterns
that a local fisherman recommended for my area, and they were very
effective for me). For this past season, I tied roughly two sizes and
two colors of most of these patterns, and tried to tie 6-12 of each
variation.

I realize this is a general question and that patterns may vary the
answer - but - in general, how many sizes of a given pattern should I
tie? An example would be an adult midge pattern in sizes 20-28 or a
given nymph in sizes 16 to 28 -- how many sizes would be adequate to
populate my boxes for the season? I did the math and about stroked
out at the number of flies I would have to tie to do ALL of the sizes
for ALL of the 25 flies. Especially since I am a slow tier at this
point in my experience .... I think I'd die of old age before I got em
all tied :-)

Thanks in advance for any help that you can give me on this.

- Dave K.

SIZE 16-28!?!?! Good Lord, man, those must be some _BABY_ tarpon in
your neck of the woods...or are you after bass?

HTH,
R
OTOH...a 24 with 100 yds of topshot on a three-oh...AFAIK, no one has
tried it, so....

Newbie Question: How many fly sizes & colors to tie for next season?
 

"mdk77"
An example would be an adult midge pattern in sizes 20-28 or a
given nymph in sizes 16 to 28 -- how many sizes would be adequate to
populate my boxes for the season? I did the math and about stroked
out at the number of flies I would have to tie to do ALL of the sizes
for ALL of the 25 flies.


I see you have already gotten many answers and most are probably accurate
regardless of how much they contradict each other.

Fishing Montahoming for trout ....

I find that the big majority of flies I require are between #16 and #20,
inclusive. Size #18 is the most used. The exceptions are generally to
meet the more famous big bug hatches, the stoneflies and "drakes," all of
which are over for the year before the season is one third gone.

The way I do it is to tie specific patterns to suggest specific food items
and only in sizes that accurately portray that food organism. Sometimes on
less encountered items I only tie one size to match the small end of the
size spectrum, I've found "too small" will outfish "too big" nearly always
..... for trout.

At the end of each season I go through my boxes and cull items that were
never used or failed to perform ..... unless I didn't encounter that fishing
opportunity and am certain I will in future seasons. This keeps the boxes
from becoming filled with the unused and ineffective. I travel with
several of those big divided plastic boxes like you might store screws in
and they hold excesses from which I refill my carry with me boxes.

So, a couple examples

Sparkle Duns .... I tie them in #22 to #14 BUT ... only a very few in the
#22, a half dozen olive/black and a half dozen a bright green .... some in
the #20, for two types of baetis and late season PMDs, a LOT in the #18 for
the majority of the PMDs and 'olives,' and a few in the larger sizes for
the first PMD hatches and odd color such as suitable for Mahogany Duns or
March Browns. The really big mayflies are better suggested by a
different pattern.


PT nymphs ... an excellent suggestion of mayfly nymphs of most species ... I
tie in 20 - 14 ... mostly ... you guessed it #18

Midge pupa ... this could get endless, so practicality comes into play...
seine your waters, pick one or three colors most common and match them down
to sizes that get silly ... my definition would be #24 ... you don't need
many of each until you are certain which ones are best. Add a very few
AS YOU ACTUALLY ENCOUNTER specific needs ... so I tie a few big midges for
western lakes, but I don't carry them normally. they are in a stillwater box
that only comes with me on lakes

My carrying boxes are populated with two or three of the less used
size/color ties and up to 8 or 10 of the most used. Two will usually get
me through the unexpected day, 8 allows a few days between restocking.
They are restocked from the storage boxes as flies are used up, often daily.
They have a special section for "experiments" and experiments are tied in
the quantity "two or three" ... true successes are given a permanent spot
in one box or another, the far more common "ho-hum, caught some fish, but
nothing special" version are used until gone then abandoned, the real
failures get tossed .... opening a crammed fly box and not being able to
find what you want because of all the junk flies is ridiculous ... toss em
or cut off the materials and reuse the hook, if budget demands


Tying is fun ... have fun ...but ... don't get so carried away with "a dozen
each of 9 sizes in 6 colors" you'll regret it ... tie three each, keep
notes on what works until you have your own list of preferences. If you
break all three off in huge fish in an hour ... yep, tie more until you
drop, but still don't carry much more than a day's supply with you on the
water ... imho

Newbie Question: How many fly sizes & colors to tie for next season?
 

David, if you are going to be serious about tying, you should purchase
Ted Leeson's and Jim Schollmeyer's book "The Fly Tier's Benchside
Reference". Anything you ever wanted to know about fly tying is in
this book. It's a wonderful reference manual with step by step
illustrations on hundreds of techniques and dressing styles.

When it first came out in 1998, many of us rushed to the book store to
buy it for $100. Today you can buy it on Amazon.com for $63. I saw
it in a fly shop recently for $60. Great buy.

Dave

Newbie Question: How many fly sizes & colors to tie for next season?
 

"Larry L" wrote

... imho



Another thing that came to mind.

I don't think anything has improved my fly fishing as much as one simple
rule I came up with and try to follow.

"Don't open a fly box UNTIL you know what fly you are looking for."

In other words try to avoid posing for the classic fly fishing photo of the
guy looking at his box hoping some magic pattern will attract him. This
forces you to do things in a better order, i.e. look around first. As you
tie, try bearing this rule in mind, changing it to, "Is this a
size/color/pattern that I will specifically look for next season." and tie
large quantities of ONLY those combinations that clearly pass the test ...
limiting the "maybe" ties to quantities appropriate for the "experiments"
corner of one box.

Newbie Question: How many fly sizes & colors to tie for nextseason?
 

Larry L wrote:
"Larry L" wrote


... imho




Another thing that came to mind.

I don't think anything has improved my fly fishing as much as one simple
rule I came up with and try to follow.

"Don't open a fly box UNTIL you know what fly you are looking for."

In other words try to avoid posing for the classic fly fishing photo of the
guy looking at his box hoping some magic pattern will attract him. This
forces you to do things in a better order, i.e. look around first. As you
tie, try bearing this rule in mind, changing it to, "Is this a
size/color/pattern that I will specifically look for next season." and tie
large quantities of ONLY those combinations that clearly pass the test ...
limiting the "maybe" ties to quantities appropriate for the "experiments"
corner of one box.




The statements you make are accurate but are only necessary if you
assume that the trout are always very selective to pattern. IMO, this is
most often not the case. In most places and most of the time, trout feed
more opportunistically than selectively. The exceptions are heavily
fished streams and rivers during heavy hatches. (Which, I know, are the
types of streams and rivers you choose to fish.) Most streams and rivers
are not fertile enough for the trout to become this selective. If they
were, they would starve.

Attractor patterns catch LOTS of trout.

Willi