Fish head: My experiences mirror yours. When I first started tying and fishing, I had boxes and boxes of creations taken from books, and changed flies all day long. As I matured and identified a few true producers, a lot of those eventually rusted away due to lack of use. I'm sure each had it's speciality application, but were mostly wanting for general use.
For trout now, I go with about 7 different patterns, and typically one or another will get the job done. My goto fly is the gold ribbed hares ear. I'll admit that dry flies are a kick when fish are in the mood, but I can nearly always count on a hares ear. About the only time I get shut down is when some size 28 midge does an evening rise on some lake.
A fun aspect of summer steelhead fishing is that they seem to take whatever one wants to wave in their face. One can let the creative juices flow when building steelhead flies.
A couple mayfly patterns, scuds, midges, caddis, stonefles, hopper, damsel flies, and minnow like streamers, and I feel pretty good about any trout spot I happen on.
Last edited by 1minute; 08/09/10.
