IMPORTANT
SITE UPDATE:

Visit the relaunched
Fish & Fly at fishandfly.com

Flies of dreams

Our September 2000 contribution from Lesley Crawford

History repeats...

How many times have you enjoyed great success with one particular pattern on your favourite water only to return in a day or so to find said fly hardly raises a trout never mind hooks one? In wild trout angling such occasions are legion. Just as you think you've found the fly of your dreams and rush to fill the fly box with at least a dozen freshly made copies, the fish turn round and studiously ignore your carefully crafted offering. Such events happen to me frequently, no more amply illustrated than during a recent profuse hatch of Daddies (Crane Fly) on my local water Loch Calder. Trout after trout fell to a dry Daddy twitched gently in the light breeze. Yippee thought I, Daddies are THE fly of the moment and eagerly returning the next day, on went the same pattern with considerable confidence. Three hours later I had gone through almost every fly in the armoury ending up with a sparse Hares Ear to eventually do the business!

In truth, history rarely repeats itself in fly choice. The amount of light, the air temperature, wind speed and the trouts feeding habits will almost invariably alter from day to day (often from hour to hour!) making 'dead certs' virtually impossible to choose in advance. Only if the prevailing conditions remain virtually identical over a significant length of time, a rare occurrence, do certain flies produce near consistent results. This is not to say that a selection of familiar tried and trusted patterns cannot be developed for a specific water or fishing region, rather it is to say that flexibility in fly choice holds the key to success. It is too easy to fall into the `what did yesterday will do today' trap and lose confidence when an empty creel results. Equally anglers are often quick to blame other factors for a lack of catches (anything from the weather to their boat partner!) rather than look at what they are intent on fishing with and why its not working.

Regional Favourites

If fly choice is such a gamble how then do we go about hitting on the right pattern? To speed up selection most of us go along with well known, locally popular patterns. The whole concept of regional `favourites' bears close scrutiny. For example, why are traditional patterns (usually bright beefy tyings) ever popular on big lochs/loughs or lakes while scrawny pencil thin patterns have always held sway on southern rivers? The answers lie in a combination of personal preference from the old fly tyers and a need to design flies according to the local environment. A number of our forebears notably Stewart and Stoddart, demanded nothing but the sparsest of river patterns while loch enthusiasts of the same period worked with bright heavily dressed flies (See also April 2000 Fish & Fly article). Edicts from those doyens of the 1800`s meant many anglers followed suit, indeed the idea that a separate range of flies must be tied exclusively for big lake or for small stream use extends back over many generations.

Home conditions, river and loch

This categorising of flies is further reinforced by the practicalities of designing flies to suit `home' conditions. Generally, the depth and size of the water, its speed of flow, the localised conditions and degree of exposure as well as the regular diet of the trout, all dictate fly design. For example the old flies tied for the River Clyde where sparse with upright wings to represent the prevalent upright winged insects like March Brown, Iron Blue and Olive which hatch there. But the first Clyde flies from the 1800`s also had an extremely steep angled wing which stuck out almost at right angles to the body. The original design might therefore have been to increase the flies wind resistance, make it catch the breeze and fall on to the river in a more natural way. `Clyde Style' flies, albeit with a less prominent wing, are still in common use today on their home river as well as many other waters.

In contrast `Tummel Flies' also from the 1800`s, were designed with an almost bare hook and very sparse dressing, principally because the fly had to sink quickly in the fast current of the River Tummel. Anything with a thicker dressing never really got time to swim properly being washed away in the flow almost as soon as it hit the water. Tummel flies are not much used today simply because the amount of dressing on them amounts to little more than a bare hook! Both these examples, show clearly that flies must be tied to cope with prevailing conditions, be that abundant olives on the Clyde or fast racy water on the Tummel. Looks are never enough, practicalities must also be considered.

Similarly stillwater/loch/lake patterns show set characteristics in their make up. Most of those heavily hackled loch flies, which harp back to the old palmered flies like the Black Palmer, Red Palmer or Soldier Palmer, were made in order to make some impression on big lakes. The exposed loch environment always seems vast in comparison to the stream anglers home and because of this bigger heftier flies were designed to cope with the effects of gales and long distance casting. Also a good many of the more colourful big water flies actually harp back to salmon flies of bright hue (Butcher and Dunkeld are good examples). Though there is no way of exactly proving so, I strongly suspect the old loch anglers of the 17/1800`s were actually fishing for salmon when they began to hook good trout on their flies. Thus the concept of tying flashy `attractors' was born.

Exact choices

The question is posed whether it is necessary to tie a fly exactly relative to a particular lake/loch or stream. Certainly some flies have been designed to do this in the past, the Greenwells Glory, tied originally to represent a natural olive like insect on the River Tweed is a good illustration. More modern examples include the Bibio (tied for Irish Loughs to match the Bibio hatch) and the Doobry (tied for Orkney waters). However, all these patterns are now universally used on all types of trout waters flowing or still. The fact these flies have become accepted standards shows that a totally specific fly for use only in one particular water is actually a very rare beast, most successful trout patterns can be put to good use anywhere!

Flies of dreams

Finding the fly of your dreams is in a sense relatively easy, choosing what to use where and when is much harder. Flies are like the little pieces of a ever altering angling jigsaw. When you get one in the right place the picture can look momentarily perfect, but you must be adaptable for the scene never remains the same.

Also within Fish & Fly...

August 2000: Caithness - Land of Limestone lochs Lesley Crawford does a bit of flag waving for her home county

July 2000: The more I fish for wild trout the more I realise just how unpredictable their behaviour can be... Lesley Crawford on wild trout behaviour

June 2000: If you are a traditional wet or dry fly fisher, first attempts at nymph fishing often meet with mixed success... Lesley Crawford on Fishing the Nymph for Wild Browns

May 2000: We all know fishing is a relaxing yet challenging country pursuit enjoyed throughout Britain and that there are few finer escapes from an over stressed world. It would be great if our children could follow in our footsteps. Lesley Crawford looks at how we can encourage youngsters to take up the sport

April 2000: Lesley Crawford looks at how both the trout and angler react to weather conditions - Wild Weather

March 2000: Lesley Crawford takes a light-hearted look at how to get the most out of your wild trout fishing holiday in Scotland. A Survivor's Guide to Trout Fishing in Scotland.

February 2000: Lesley Crawford takes a seasoned look at various tactics employed by past masters in Scottish trout fishing and ponders how best we can apply old skills in the new millennium. Out with the old and in with the new. 

January 2000: Visiting the Highlands of Scotland for the first time you might be forgiven for thinking you have arrived in loch fishing paradise. An introduction to fishing for trout in Highland lochs from Lesley Crawford.