Fly Choice 101  

The most urgent question asked by any novice fly-fisher is, "How do you decide what fly to use?" From what I've observed, the ability to just relax and choose is what moves someone into the "experienced angler" category. Shelves and shelves of books have been written about insects and the flies that imitate them. There are times when all of us need to resort to this scientific approach, but those times are relatively rare. Even during a hatch, selective feeding may not be occurring. And even when it is, fish may break their pattern to take something different. In catch-and-release areas, some fish even learn non-conformity as a survival trait and feed on anything but what's hatching. 

You may think that this leaves you even worse off than before, but it doesn't. It leaves you free to select a fly based on your personal preference and what works, not what's supposed to be working. Most experienced anglers develop a system of sequentially going through several favorite flies, based on species of fish, water type, weather, and advice from others. Although the actual list of favorite flies varies widely, the sequence is remarkably similar among the anglers I've talked to.

Many of us have those nifty rod cases that allow an angler to reel the fly up to the tip-top, take the rod apart, fold it in half, and insert it in the case, reel, fly, and all. Almost every angler who does starts each trip with the last fly they used on the previous outing. This often works, especially if the trips are close together in time, species, and water type. That's "Fly Choice For Dummies": Use the same one that worked last time.

If you see someone catch a fish, don't hesitate to ask what they're using. Since many of us have boxes of flies we have no names for, you may get an answer like "a medium-sized tan nymph". This can at least act as a guide, and may in fact be more informative than a pattern name would be. Be sure and ask about presentation as well, and thank them for their advice. If there's a local fly shop, I find it always pays off to stop in there on your way to fish and ask what's hot. It's well worth the investment to buy a couple of each of the current favorites. This assures you'll have some flies you have confidence in.

Confidence is the key. If you are using a fly you've had success with before, or one that a guide says is THE fly for that river, or one that just looked so sexy you felt like biting it yourself, you will cast more carefully, retrieve more alertly. And the more fish you catch on a fly, the more confidence you'll have in it, and the more fish you'll catch on it.

An important consideration is, how do you like to fish? I personally get the biggest charge out of a visible strike, so my first choice will be a floater unless the water is so high, cold, and off-color that I know it would be totally futile to fish the top. As long as fish are actively feeding, they will probably take surface food, even in fairly deep water. And, since I like dry flies, I often try one even if the fish aren't visibly feeding.

Warm water fish are easy: I pick the cheap, durable CLP foam popper to start out with. In murky water, I may change to a cork popper which will make more fish-attracting noise. I'll go smaller if there are few strikes, or larger if tiny panfish are monopolizing my fly, or taking it too deep. If I miss a lot of hits, I'll switch to a hair bug. Short strikes or selective fish that are still actively surface-feeding encourage me to change to terrestrials. 

What color? It seldom matters. If warm water fish are feeding, they usually aren't fussy. I, personally, like chartreuse because it's easy for me to see; Yellow is traditionally a panfish favorite, and red seems almost as popular; Frog-patterned poppers attract a lot of anglers feeding from store displays. I've done well, though, using Henry Ford's advice: Take any color as long as it's black.

For trout, I have four top favorites. All year round, the X-Caddis is my first choice. There are almost always caddis hatching, on whatever water you fish. I also think trout may take this fly for a moth or hopper at times, and I've seen them apparently take them for crippled or emerging mayflies. They are fairly easy to see on the water, and cheap and easy to tie. Since most of my trout flies end up in trees, this last consideration is very important. In warm months, terrestrials may work better, and I use either an ant or a beetle. Although there are no hard-and-fast rules, remember terrestrial insects disappear during the cold months. A good generalized searching pattern is the Adams. It has a "buggy" look trout find appealing. Last but not least, I've recently added an attractor pattern to my dry-fly favorites: The venerable Royal Coachman. Each of the last three years, my largest trout of the season has been taken on some variation of this fly. That has convinced me.

Of course, there are other dry flies in my box than the ones I've mentioned. But one of these is my first choice under most circumstances, and these four easily account for 80% of the trout I take each season. One tip if you want your fly to stand out from the crowd: Use a size smaller than everyone else does. Less is more.

When trout prove uninterested in surface food, or missed hits or refusals make me think they may be actively feeding underwater (I call this "playing with their food"), my next choice is an emerger. Again, I have four favorites: A cinnamon-bodied one with a ball of deer hair behind the eye, the Paralep Emerger; The Grouse-and-Orange and Partridge-and-Olive, two soft-hackle English flies; And a nondescript wetfly, the same pale-gray in body, wings and hackle. I call it the Little Gray Wet fly. This is essentially the order I use them in, early-season to mid-summer. But remember, no hard-and-fast rules.

I hate flinging weight, especially in the form of split-shot. A strike indicator just makes things worse: One more complicating factor to unwind from the tree limb or untangle from the wind knot. But sometimes that's the only way to catch fish. I prefer weighted flies if I have to flip-and-plunk. Either way, my first choice is always some variation on the reliable old Hare's Ear Nymph that has dredged up many a trout for me over the years. A tiny Pheasant Tail is also effective almost anytime, even in fast water. Remember that aquatic insects are nymphs 364 days of the year, so a variety of colors and sizes are available to the fish all the time. No need to be choosy, go with the nymph that looks good to you. As an attractor, for big water, I've started using a Woolly Bugger.

For warmwater fish, I like chenille. My favorite wet flies, hands down, are the Kuss Bug and the Bitch Creek Nymph. I sometimes fish bright-colored traditional wet flies for panfish, especially the McGinty and Yellow Sally. For bass, I've had success with Marabou Muddlers, and Woolly Buggers work as well. They seem to go for the jigging motion. The much-touted Green Weenie is another good attractor for warm water fish, although I personally have had little luck with it trout fishing.

The most important part of fly selection is fish selection. If the fish are in a coma, the only fly that will take them is a stick of dynamite with a hook glued to it ("Black Powder Puff", size 1/4 stick). Find fish that are feeding, and chances are they will take almost any fly you present with care and confidence. For many years, experienced anglers have said flies are tied to catch fishermen, not fish. This is perfectly true. But fly shops have lots of happy customers, because if an angler likes a fly enough to fish it well, hungry fish will take it.

So, first find feeding fish; Then use the system: The last fly you used; What the fly shop recommended; What the angler next to you is catching them on; Your favorite fly, your best friend's favorite fly, or one from my list. Make sure it's a fly you can cast out there and think, "This is the one. Any moment now..." You WILL catch fish.

--Rabbit Jensen—



A convoy of shiny vehicles bounced slowly down the dirt road amidst clumps of hemlock and rhododendron. In a clearing, several deer stood agaze, ears swiveling, before springing into the shrubbery. At last the cars reached a parking lot and pulled in, one by one. My red Ford pickup, at the end of the row, looked like a draft horse tethered in a line of thoroughbreds. At least it was nicely polished; what I love, I love. Eight women gathered around a rustic picnic table, eating lunch and discussing tactics. I savoured my sharp cheddar cheese; no faddish foreign cheeses for me. A simple taste, like my pickup truck. I joined the discussion, asking to be in the group going to the most remote stretch of stream.

Lunch finished, three of us left for the farthest parking area. Once there, the others eagerly geared up, alternately teasing me for my characteristic slowness and urging me to move faster. I would not be rushed through my methodical routine: First the mat to protect my stocking-foot waders from abrasion; The socks, meticulously smoothed; The waders themselves, then the careful donning of the wading shoes, assuring the bulky neoprene feet were smooth inside them. The gravel guards hooked and velcroed in place, then standing to adjust the shoulder straps and put on the wading belt, after distributing the various lanyards, pouches, and D-rings around its circumference. Rummaging through a pouch to find three types of sunscreen and a bug repellant, all applied with great care.

By now my companions were dancing with impatience. 'I'll catch you up,' I said, and they were off down the trail like dogs let off the leash I shrugged into my vest, and pulled a reel case out of the bottom of my tote bag: An old Hardy Perfect, which emitted a well-bred purr as I stripped out the leader and ran it through my rubber straightener. Furtively I glanced around to make sure no one saw me pull a rod tube from behind the truck seats. Unscrewing the cap, I slid out two sections and laid them gently on the seat: Faceted like six-sided jewels, the color of topaz. From an inner vest pocket I pulled a ziplock bag, extracting Q-tips and a clean rag to wipe the already-immaculate metal ferrules, applied a special lubricant, then I fitted them together with all the care of a watchmaker. No one saw me caress the golden cane surface before I seated the Hardy, then ritualistically strung the line through the guides, admiring each inch of my bamboo jewel as I did so. What fly? A little puff of deer hair and dubbing designed to dance the water's surface.

I acknowledged the greetings of my fellows as I walked past on the trail, but didn't linger long. They didn't notice my bamboo sweetheart held behind me, out of casual danger, out of their sight. At last, far from prying eyes, I found a lovely ledgerock pool, the perfect setting for my jewel. A few false casts washed away the muscle-memory of graphite, and my arm muscles remembered the slow firm stroke that brings life to a split cane rod. Golden highlights flashed in the sunlight, the little dry fly wafted through the air and settled to the water with the grace of dandelion fluff, shyly offering itself to the trout like a teenage girl hoping for a kiss on her first date. Perhaps it's just my imagination that a bamboo rod presents a dry fly more delicately than any other. If so, remember that in fly-fishing, confidence is the key. I believe it, so for me, it happens. And, there I was, just me and my sweetie, sharing the passion and poetry of fly-fishing.

Not for me the no-nonsense bottom-dredging that was working for the others. I shudder at the thought of flinging weight with my darling cane. That's not the job it was crafted for. Gossamer dry flies and tiny wet flies, fur and feather creations as natural and lovingly made as that bamboo rod. An organic connection, from me through the living cane, down the line and leader to the fly, hackles breathing in the sparkling current. Sometimes I wonder what it was like two decades before my time: Did silk lines and gut leaders complete that connection, have a feel that modern synthetics don't? I caught a couple of fish that afternoon, bright and lively streambred browns with a subtle beauty matching the rod that subdued them.

The important thing, though, was the poetry of the experience: the hand-crafted golden beauty of split cane, delicately wafting a dry fly onto water as clean and clear as when the world was new; the subtle rise of a native brook trout or stream bred brown, then the primeval struggle of prey and predator; the prey lovingly released, like the kiss after passion's satisfaction. And that's just what it is, my grand passion.

Why do I love bamboo? My graphite rods throw a tighter loop, are more durable, take more abuse. They are production-line tools easily replaced if I damage them or wear them out. Heaven knows they're cheaper than cane. And I don't hesitate to use them to fling huge poppers or Woolly Buggers, stalk big bass in complex cover, or fish urban streams with surfaces swirling with unknown chemicals.

Why do I love bamboo? Is it that I'm such an individualist I relate to a rod that is hand-crafted, from selection of wood to varnishing the guide wraps? Is it a symbol of a simpler time, a link to a past as golden as the cane itself? Is it the same atavism that draws me to acoustic music, old books, archaeology, and a lifestyle more suited to 1940 than 2002? I'm not an investor; None of my cane rods have names that command five-figure prices. It's how they felt when I first handled them, cast them, that whispered "Buy me". I'm obviously not out to impress people. In fact, I'm almost fanatical in seeking remote, lonely places to share with my lovely six-sided darlings. And there is the clue.

Why do I love bamboo?  I'm a pervert.  I want it all to myself, from the first topaz gleam when I open the rod tube, to the final loving caress as I wipe moisture from the satiny cane before sacking it at the end of the day. No prying questions or jealous glances. Above all, I don't want to feel obligated to tell someone, 'Here, try a few casts.' This is MINE. I'm as possessive as a two-year-old, as greedy as a miser, as compulsive as an addict. Addicted to a timeless beauty I can feel as well as see.

But I'm a happy pervert, possibly even a well-adjusted one. The only change I plan to make is to acquire more bamboo rods to cherish. To quote Diana Ross: "If there's a cure for this, I don't want it."

-Rabbit Jensen-