What flies do I actually need to start fly fishing?

How many flies does a beginner actually need?

Roughly a dozen patterns, three or four sizes of each, three of each size. That is 40 to 50 flies in a single box, and it will cover a full season on most North American trout water.

The instinct is the opposite: buy one of everything that looks good, end up with 200 flies in one size each, and never build any confidence in any of them. A small box fished hard teaches you more than a large box browsed. And a fly you have only one of is a fly you will not cast near the log jam, which is where the fish is.

What should be in a first fly box?

Think in jobs, not names. Each of these categories does something the others cannot, and the specific patterns listed are proven representatives — follow the links for what each one imitates, when to fish it, and in what sizes.

That is ten patterns. Add two more that are specific to your home water — ask at the local shop, which is the single most useful thirty seconds of research available — and the box is finished.

Why does size matter more than pattern?

A trout holding in moving current has a fraction of a second to accept or reject something drifting past. In that window it is reading, roughly in order: size, then silhouette, then behavior (is it drifting naturally?), then color. Pattern name comes nowhere.

This is why the same dressing in three sizes is more useful than three different dressings in one size. A #14 and a #18 of the same fly are, to a fish, two different insects. A #14 of two different patterns are frequently the same insect.

How do I choose a fly on the water?

1. Look before you open the box

   Are fish rising? Is anything in the air, on the water, or crawling on the rocks in the shallows? Two minutes of observation narrows a hundred choices to about three.

2. Pick the category first

   Rises and insects on the surface mean a dry fly. Nothing showing means a nymph. High, colored or very low light means a streamer. The category decision matters far more than the pattern decision.

3. Match the size you can see

   If you can catch an insect, hold it against a hook in your box. If you cannot, start at #16 — it is the middle of the range for most rivers most of the year.

4. Fish it properly for ten drifts

   A good fly drifted badly outfishes nothing. Give any choice ten honest presentations through good water before you judge it.

5. Change one variable at a time

   If it fails, change depth first, then size, then pattern. Changing all three at once means you learn nothing from the change that finally works.

What about the water I actually fish?

The generic box above is deliberately generic. Local conditions shift the emphasis, sometimes a lot.

None of this requires a second box. It means buying four of the pattern your river demands and one of the pattern it does not.

How should I organize and look after them?

One box, sorted by category rather than by pattern — dries in one row, nymphs in another, streamers in a third. Sorting by category matches the way you actually decide on the water: you pick the job before you pick the fly.

• Dry your flies before they go back in. A wet fly in a closed foam box rusts, and it rusts the hooks next to it. Park used flies on your patch or the outside of the box until they dry.
• Check the hook points. Drag the point across a thumbnail — if it slides instead of catching, sharpen it or bin the fly. Blunt hooks cost more fish than fly choice ever will.
• Retire crushed hackle. A dry fly that has been chewed and no longer floats is a wet fly you did not intend to fish.

What is the fastest way to learn which fly to use?

Reduce the number of variables you are guessing at. Anglers who struggle with fly selection are usually not being beaten by fly selection — they are being beaten by depth and drag, and then blaming the fly. Get the drift right first, and fly choice becomes a much smaller problem than it looks from the shop counter.

After that, it is pattern recognition, and it is learnable. Knowing at a glance that a slim olive nymph, a fat brown nymph and a tiny black midge do different jobs is most of what experienced anglers are doing when they seem to pick a fly out of thin air. The Fly-brary lays out all 54 patterns that way: what each one imitates, the sizes to carry, and when it earns its place.

Then go and fish the same six flies for a season. Confidence in a fly is not superstition — it makes you fish that fly more carefully, for longer, in better water, which is exactly why it catches more.