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The Reel Deal Deck
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Volume 1 · every card explained

Hand-drawn playing cards that teach while you play.

How the deck is made, card by card: what each one tells you, why the suits came out green and brown, and who prints it. The box says Volume 1 for a reason — tell us what belongs in the next one.

What is on a card

Six things, in the same place on all 55 of them. This is the Adams, the ace of hearts.

Adams — Ace of hearts from The Reel Deal Deck, showing the hand-drawn fly and its description

The printed face, actual artwork. Every card in the deck links through to its full page in our Fly-brary.

  1. Rank and suit

    A♥

    Top left and bottom right, the way any playing card indexes itself. Printed in green here, because hearts and diamonds are green in this deck.

  2. The fly’s name

    Adams

    What anglers call it, and what you would ask for at a fly shop counter.

  3. Category

    Dry Fly

    What kind of fly it is, so you know roughly where in the water it belongs before you read a word.

  4. The drawing

    Hand-drawn

    The fly itself, drawn by hand for this deck. Not a photograph and not licensed art.

  5. What it imitates

    Created in Michigan, 1922. Most famous dry. Imitates mayflies broadly.

    The plain-English note printed on the card. One or two lines, no jargon.

  6. Hook sizes

    #12–#16

    The range the pattern is usually tied in.

Green and brown, not red and black

A two-color deck: green replaces red on hearts and diamonds, bark brown replaces black on spades and clubs — drawn from the tuck box and card back.

Hearts

Green — green replaces red

Diamonds

Green — green replaces red

Clubs

Bark brown — bark brown replaces black

Spades

Bark brown — bark brown replaces black

It still deals and reads like a normal deck — four suits, thirteen ranks, the same corner index in the same corner. The colors come off the tuck box and the card back, so a hand of cards looks like the river it came from rather than a casino.

The four suits

Thirteen cards each, ace through king. Every fly listed here has a free page in the Fly-brary — the deck’s contents are readable in full before you own one.

Hearts

13 cards · green ink · hooks #8–#26

Dry Fly 8 Dry Fly/Attractor 4 Nymph/Wet Fly 1

Diamonds

13 cards · green ink · hooks #2–#20

Euro-Nymph 4 Nymph 4 Streamer 2 Dry Fly 1 Stonefly Nymph 1 Surface/Streamer 1

Clubs

13 cards · bark brown ink · hooks #4–#22

Dry Fly 5 Emerger 3 Terrestrial Dry 3 Spinner 1 Stonefly 1

Spades

13 cards · bark brown ink · hooks #4–#24

Attractor Nymph 2 Emerger 2 Midge 2 Streamer 2 Chironomid 1 Midge/Emerger 1 Midge/Larva 1 Nymph 1 Wet Fly 1

Three cards with no rank at all

Two jokers carry a trout-in-a-jester's-cap mark instead of a rank: the Egg and the San Juan Worm.

The Reel Deal Deck joker mark: a trout wearing a jester's cap
The mark that stands in for a rank on all three specials.
Egg — Joker from The Reel Deal Deck, showing the hand-drawn fly and its description
Egg Egg Imitation · #10–#14
San Juan Worm — Joker from The Reel Deal Deck, showing the hand-drawn fly and its description
San Juan Worm Worm Pattern · #10–#14
Bass Popper — Joker from The Reel Deal Deck, showing the hand-drawn fly and its description
Bass Popper Surface Popper · #8–#10

All three catch fish, which is why they are in the deck and not a gag. An egg, a worm and a popper simply do not belong to a suit of trout flies.

The back and the box

An engraved green border framing two rising trout and an angler on the river.

The Reel Deal Deck card back: an engraved green border framing two rising trout and an angler casting on the river
One back, printed on every card in the deck. It is symmetrical top to bottom, so nothing in your hand gives itself away.
The Reel Deal Deck tuck box: an engraved green case with two trout, holding a fan of three fly cards
The tuck box carries the same engraving and the claim printed on it: “54 Unique Cards — Hand Illustrated in Exquisite Detail”.

The card that is not a fly

A 56th card carries Ken and Audrey's note, the site address and the Trout Unlimited Business mark.

The info card from The Reel Deal Deck, printed with Ken and Audrey's note and the Trout Unlimited Business member mark

We're Ken and Audrey, a father-daughter team of multigenerational Idaho farmers and entrepreneurs.

And as passionate fly anglers, we are dedicated to catch-and-release fishing and protecting our headwaters and trout habitats. That's why we created The Reel Deal Deck — exquisite hand-drawn playing cards that teach while you play.

We hope this deck sparks joy, conversation, and a deeper love for the sport.

Thank you for your support. Tight lines!

Ken and Audrey — printed on the info card

The same card carries the Trout Unlimited Business member mark and @reeldealdeck. We are business members of Trout Unlimited; that is a membership anyone can buy, not a partnership or an endorsement. What that does and does not mean.

How it is printed

The specification, in the words the manufacturer and the tuck box use.

Printer
The United States Playing Card Company
Stock
Genuine Bicycle Rider Back stock with the patented Air-Cushion finish
Size
Poker size, 2.5in x 3.5in
Materials
FSC-certified paper, starch-based laminating glue, vegetable-based inks
Recyclable
Yes — the same material specification as any Bicycle deck
Origin
Made in the USA
Edition
Volume 1

On the count. The deck is “54 Unique Cards — Hand Illustrated in Exquisite Detail” — fifty-two standard cards plus the two jokers. There is a bonus card in there as well. We will let you find it.

Where to go next

Every fly above has a free page. The deck is the same thing, in your hands, on cards you can actually deal.

Order now Back to Our Fly-brary Meet Ken and Audrey