Trout Fishing Flies - The Basics

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Trout Fishing Flies - The Basics There are hundreds of different artificial Trout Fly patterns available to fly fishermen today. Trout Flies usually fall into two overall categories; Flies to deceive the Trout into believing it is real food, which imitate the natural foods available to the fish such as Nymphs, and flies to provoke the Trout’s predatory streak, which tend to be bright in colour and are not intended to look natural but to lure and aggravate the Trout into taking the Trout fly. These categories can be further split and include wet Trout Flies, dry Trout Flies, nymphs and lures. Wet Trout Flies are presented to the Trout under the surface of the water. These can be intricately dressed patterns such as the Teal Blue & Silver and the Mallard & Claret. Other wet Trout Fly patterns are simple and sparsely tied and include spider patterns such as the Snipe & Purple. Dry Trout Flies are presented to the fish on or in the water’s surface. The fly’s buoyancy is usually achieved by winding the rigid fibres from a cock hackle around the fly to form a collar hackle, usually towards the head to distribute the weight of the fly on the water’s surface. Alternatively, the fly can be constructed using Deer or Elk Hair, the fibres of which are hollow, again enabling the fly to float. In either case, Floatant can be applied to the Trout Fly to assist it’s buoyancy, the most popular being George Gehrke’s Gink. Nymphs are often imitations of the natural larval stages of immature aquatic insects, such as the Caddis Fly, Damsel Fly and of course the fisherman’s favourite, the Mayfly. Natural coloured fly tying materials are often used to create nymphs in order to help fool the fish into believing the fly is natural food. The stage beyond the nymph is the emerger; a fly tied to represent one of the natural insect’s most vulnerable stages of life. As these insects hatch, and therefore emerge or suspend from the water, they hang in the water’s surface, shedding it’s ‘shuck’ or skin whilst drying it’s wings before taking flight. Emerger or suspender patterns therefore can be classed as Dry Flies as they sit within the waters surface. Lures are the extreme opposite of the natural, imitative patterns. A wide range of colours and materials are used in the dressing of these Trout Flies, the purpose is to trigger the Trout’s aggression to induce ‘a take’. However Lures can also be imitative in their own right, where other food groups such as fish fry, tadpoles and leeches are concerned.

Online Catalogue | Flies |  Trout Fishing Flies - The Basics