That's good advice guys. As a beginner I poured through the books and carried boxes full of boxes, and I still have most of those somewhere. Now it's usually a box that fits in a shirt pocket with maybe 6 well proven local patterns.
Change regions, however, and a local shop can probably steer one to three or four new ones specific to their waters. For instance, I was ill prepared on my first trip to the San Juan in New Mexico. Those are lip-less seriously educated fish.
Have a good one,
