Impressionism in fly design

[krusty]

Isn't pretty much every artificial lure 'impressionistic'?

 

[Hoofer]

I like impressionistic flies, especially flies that could represent several different things that are tasty to fish. My eyes were opened to impressionistic flies by John Atherton's excellent book The Fly and the Fish.

This short article was interesting to me. I'll be going back to LaFountain's Caddisflies for a look at the seven attributes of successful flies!

The requirements of a successful grass shrimp fly pattern are…well, they certainly don’t include realism

Edward Ringwood Hewitt was one of the leading innovators in American fly fishing and fly tying. The Skating Spider…Bivisisble…Neversink Stone…these are all Hewitt creations. Hewit…

currentseams.com

I’ve never read the LaFintaine book but I think the Sparkle Pupa is genius-level fly tying — really sort of an advance of the art, where the feel is as important as the image, and the skill of tying lies in the proportions and weight. Fantastic fly. The other guy of that rough vintage is Gartside — nothing beats the mighty Sparrow!

 

[Herkileez]

I had a lab visit for my bi-annual checkup, where I spotted the orange tourniquet band, used for taking blood samples. It immediately reminded me of west coast spot prawns, which can be effective as a steelhead pattern. Here's my "impression" of a spot prawn fly...although I'll have to wait until next winter to see if the sh are impressed with it.

 

[Hobbyranch]

I had a lab visit for my bi-annual checkup, where I spotted the orange tourniquet band, used for taking blood samples. It immediately reminded me of west coast spot prawns, which can be effective as a steelhead pattern. Here's my "impression" of a spot prawn fly...although I'll have to wait until next winter to see if the sh are impressed with it.

View attachment 67382

View attachment 67383

Beautiful work!