Home Forums Fishing Flyfishing "Go to" fly

Egg sucking leech. (purple-red)

For me down here in the salt it would be a clouser minnow. Color would depend on the color of the water. Clousers seem to catch about any thing. Very much a confidence fly for me. White and chartreuse or white and pink will cover about all needs. I keep two different weights and unweighted in any box I take.

I’d have to find some grouse hackles in order to tie a Grouse and Orange. But I use the heck out of Partridge and Olives. Partridge and Orange are in the fly box as well.

Another reliable fly for me is one I pretty much swiped from Frank Sawyer. Shetland Leprechaun wool body and a black nickel bead head. I use thread and not wire. I tie it extra extra chubby in the fall for panfish action, and normally dressed for trout. There are lots of Caddis around here, so I’m sure that’s what the trout think it is. I have no idea what the bluegill and bass think it is, other than a nice easy meal…

If it came down to just one fly. As in one particular fly, and not a pattern, it would have to be the Elk Hair Caddis tied by RickR for a campfire fly swap. I’m fairly confident in saying that one fly accounted for about a hundred fish. Sure, most were bluegill, but it also caught trout and bass. I lost it to a fish… That one fly had mojo out the wazoo. Enough that I think of it a dozen years later.

Elk Hair Caddis is a good choice anywhere you go. I always try to have a few in various different sizes when I am unsure what's hatching as is an Adams and Royal Wuff.
Using a dropper such as a Telico nymph helps when unsure.

Plus 1-----Floats great, easy to see and works great when no hatch going on---A Do All Fly!

Hip

#12 Olive Hares Ear

Can't go wrong using Partridge either! I'll occasionally use some crazy, speckled soft hen hackle I acquired years ago in place of Grouse. Every grouse of Hun I kill, I pluck out a Zip-lock bag full of neck and body feathers for flies. I really need to shoot a Blue grouse though. Would love to tie soft hackles with thier feathers. Very unique colouration. Great eating too!
Some very cool feathers on a Ringneck pheasant as well.
Jeff

To get the original grouse for a grouse and orange you need the red grouse of Europe... or as we call them here, willow ptarmigan. Same bird.

If you need grouse of any flavor let me know.

Renegade

Wine and brown leech here.

Dry flies-- black tail, peacock body, and brown and grizzly hackle.

Royal coachman

I like the fact that people are still using the old, classic fly patterns.

I'm in the corner of my nymphs of choice are gold ribbed hare's ear, pheasant tail and prince. My dries of choise are parachute adams and elk hair caddis. I feel if I had to pick only five flies for the rest of my life, it would be those five.

The black or olive wooly bugger are "almost" universally accepted as the "if only one" fly. However after 5 decades of fly fishing I have tried those hundreds of times. I'm sure I am the only guy never to have caught a fish on a wooly bugger. Although, based on its popularity and clear successful history, I will continue to try. I even love the book True Love and the Wooly Bugger.

Oh, I almost forgot, my "Go-to fly" is a bead head gold ribbed hare's ear nymph.

Renegade

I'll "double down on that! Double Renegade, out West and "trolled" with a small flasher... deadly on Lakes!!!
Big Sky, probably not traditional enough for you but the same goes for that old olive wooly worm/bugger... both will put fresh "filets" on the menu for that evening!

Rarer occasions... Royal Coachman, Polar fly, "Scuds" fished the same way.

Dry fly on the river... Adams Irresistable, Renegade, Elk Hair caddis.

I'm not fly fishing much anymore. Mountain streams I'd always start with a yellow Humpy. More delicate waters and Adams. Pretty pedestrian, but it usually worked!

Orange rubber spider

Irresistible

For 90 percent of my fishing in the small streams and creeks here I use a #14 brown nymph. Either a seals fur like pattern, but tied with any brown dubbing I have, or a pheasant tail. Sometimes I add a flashback, especially on the pheasant tail. I read somewhere that 80% of a trout's diet is taken sub surface so a well placed nymph seems to do the trick.