When I moved to Montana, I said "Shit" I'll probably need more flies. Come to find out all I used in Washington worked well here. But I had to learn how to nymph as you catch more and bigger fish under the water. I still use dries but have almost used nymphs more now.
I really only like dry fly fishing as i have never mastered (nor did i ever care to) nymphing. I could never figure out how to use a dropper or a strike indicator either. I like to fish what‘s easiest for me and want to keep it stress free. I’m the person who had to quit yoga because i got too stressed out from doing it. I don’t want to make fly fishing stressful like yoga was!
Because I have about as much chance at being an entomologist as i do of playing quarterback for the LA Rams i stick mostly to my staple favorites, though I will at times fish with chironomids.
My favorites:
Parachute Adams (my go to fly)
Royal Wulff
Elk hair caddis
Madam X
little gnats
….and whatever the folks in the fly shop tell me might work
I have mostly been fishing lakes and I have two go to wet flies and two go to dry flies
Wet
1. carey special with peacock hurl
2. beadheaded bugger
Dry
1. Hopper
2. Beetle
Dry: lady mcConnell
Streamer. Simiseal leech w red beadhead*
Emerger: Sparkle dun, gray
Nymph: Rickards damsel nymph, orange details version
Chironomid. “JBC”, jays best chironomid
* tie with the also must have black and variegated and gold sparkle wooly buggger in modest size and w gold head
Jay
I could still use a bloodworm that I really liked. So far a simple red tassel braided material for n tiny diameter , or an all bead version -red lined clear beads - are my best
Dry: whatever dumb thing I luck into getting them to eat (I'm a lousy dry fly fisher, but a stimulator dragged across the surface works pretty good for local cutts).
Everything else: some sort of olive woolly worm/bugger variant. That pattern is downright fishy anywhere. I am headed to the Florida Keys pretty soon here, and while I have tied an absurd arsenal of bad saltwater flies, I will definitely be tying a few olive buggers on saltwater hooks, just to see what will eat them. I'm betting they will catch something....
