Are you able to list your five favorite trout flies off the cuff? In this podcast, we discuss our five favorite trout flies. And then our next five as well. The number of fly patterns are legion. And growing. Yet we tend to revert back to a few basic flies – and we still seem to catch fish!
Post Your Five Favorite Trout Flies
We’d love for you to post your go-to flies. You don’t have to give away your secret sauce, if a couple of them are your own concoction.
Just post them below!
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Parachute Adams #16 as an all-around, all-purpose
Elkhair Caddis (caught my first trout on it!)
Royal Trude, as an attractor or top fly
Bead head hare’s ear or prince nymph as a dropper
Wooly bugger, various colors for a streamer
Many years ago I was demonstrating how to cast with a fly rod on a stream in Wisconsin and unexpectedly caught a nice rainbow on a Muddler Minnow. That has been my “go to” trout fly since then. However, the “reasoning” is more complicated. My first Muddlers were tied by Bob, a friend of mine, who liked Muddlers, introduced me to fly tying, and drove with me to Herter’s to help select the gear I needed to get started. I think he was 19, when Bob won both the fly casting and bait casting competition that was held at the Minneapolis Boat, Sports, and Travel Show. Later, he tied flies for Orvis that he had designed.
What Bob knew, but I did not, was that he had a disease of his spine that would eventually take his life before he was 30. I have benefited from the generous sharing of knowledge by friends, many of whom are gone. When I fish a Muddler, I am following a friend’s advice.
Wow, now that is a terrific and moving story. I have fished Muddler’s but not with a ton of success. How do you fish it? Dead drift? With a dropper? Strip it?
Dave
Really good advice–BUT–you left out the color and size factors. A guide from New Zealand was tying at the Conclave of FFF and I sat and talked with him. I told him I could not count the times on the Deschutes when I could not ‘match the hatch’ effectively, so tied on a #14 Royal Wulff and took the rising trout on the first cast. Then I said–“and if nothing’s rising, I start with a #14 hare’s ear. He chuckled and said, “You’d do verrry well in New Zealand, ma friend.” Pulled from his vest two boxes–one full of various sized Royal Wulffs, and another full of hare’s ears! So those two, in 4 sizes–#16, 14, 12, 10, and you can catch trout all year.
Genius, pure genius. You are absolutely right. Thank you for posting!
Dave
My five favorite flies depend upon where I’m fishing, what time of year, river, lake or stream, saltwater or freshwater, etc. For example, dry flies for an average Colorado stream. Parachute Adams, Mercer’s Missing Link, Roger Hill’s Devil Bug, John Bett’s Mole Fly, and a trusty Renegade. Nymphing would be a Black Pheasant Tail, BH Prince Nymph, Brown Bird’s Nest, Soft Back Scud, and a Buckskin.
grey sparkle wing Rs2, elk hair caddis, pats rubber legs, the others are my one-off versions of a pmd emerger and a midge emerger. assuming i am on my home waters on the front range of colorado.