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.

If you give patterns, it would be easier to help you. Lets say you
are tying a Pheasant Tail nymph: I would tie sizes 16, 18, and 20.
Hares Ear? 14, 16, 18
Elk Hair Caddis (dry)? 14, 16, 18 (Two colors?)
Wooly Bugger? 6, 8, 10 (Three colors?)
Grey Ghost? 2, 4, 6
Midge (buzzer)? 20, 22, 24

I would initially tie a dozen of each size, enough to populate any fly
box. Do you have a recipe book? If so, it should tell you what size
a particular pattern should be.



Give us some patterns and types of flies (nymph/dry/midge/streamer).
List the 25.

Dave