Towards the Essence

Being, once again, a half way through another trout fishing season I’ve, again, started to think about my gear. When I started fly fishing, I simply wanted to get all the stuff needed to catch the fish. Back then it meant that I needed to get everything; different rods and reels and lines for different conditions, all flies imaginable for the most unimaginable conditions, a fully loaded fly fishing vest, and so on. I was a teenager and my parents didn’t share my enthusiasm, so, perhaps luckily, I didn’t get everything I wanted.



In last few years I’ve been slipping more and more towards minimalism when it comes to the gear. The minimalism was not my idea, but when I read about it, when I thought about it, I found that it suits me perfectly. I had a lot of stuff, but I had already fished enough to know that I needed only a fraction of it.



A wife of a fly fisherman may think that this minimalism is a good thing, an idea that saves family resources, both time and money, and for the most part this is correct. But there are exceptions, like when I decided to simplify my fly selection, and to drop the number of my fly boxes down to two, I had to buy two fly boxes. And I also had to tie all my flies again. So it cost a bit money (if you're going to use only two boxes, they better be quality boxes) and a lot of time (about every Tuesday evening from September to May).



Half way through this season I look the contents of these two boxes and I know that the flies I actually use 99 % of the time would require the space of a half of a fly box. I’m currently searching such a fly box. Once I had a vest, then a chest pack, then a wading jacket, and now I'm thinking about a pocket that can hold one small to medium sized fly box. Then, when I have again minimized my gear, I start to slip again to the other direction. I’ll take some extra flies or a new gadget for next fishing trip. Little by little I’ll start to accumulate more and more gear. And it’s fine.

What is the essence then? I’m slowly beginning to learn what there actually is to learn. For all I know the gear has very little to do with it. They are means to an end. But even the end is not the point. Perhaps more time than thinking the answer should be spent thinking the question. If you say “I'm fishing to catch fish” then you either have the wrong answer or the right answer for the wrong question.

Classic flies

Lately I have been tempted by the idea of classic flies. This is somewhat in contrast to my personal view of fly tying. I am very practical and simplistic when it comes to fly patterns.

Below is an example of my streamers. These are Supertinseli patterns. They are easy to tie (about 3-4 minutes per fly), use only artificial materials and they are killers when it comes to effectiveness.

From Fly-patterns

But would it feel better if I would caught a big trout with the Grey Ghost instead? Or how about a classic winged wet fly instead of POPA Caddis?

Fly Tying Season

The winter is closing in. Although there will soon be little or no fly fishing activities available, this coming season is best fly tying time for me. I can tie two or three hundred flies per winter. And I need those flies next summer, at least some of them.

When a full fly box looks empty

Some years back I did not tie any flies during the winter. Back then I had other things in mind. Back then I didn’t have the flies I need during summer. I had to tie few flies before each fishing trip and I generally felt that my fly boxes were filled with flies I didn’t need.

The main reason for this was that my fly tying was very random - impulsive at best. Most of the flies in my fly box were my own creations – i.e. patterns that should have never been tied. I didn’t use them too much as I didn’t trust them. I was in constant need of reliable patterns. I had a few, but I tied only one or two flies at time, because I was and still am a lazy person who only ties flies when he has to.

Tour de France

Then I read the Tour de France tying by Martin Joergensen. In this article Martin describes few good speed tying tips (most important is that you should tie good bunch of flies in specific pattern instead of just one or two) and tells how you can watch TV and tie flies at the same time. I am not much of a biking fan and Tour de France was finished that year anyway. Instead I was deep in family life as was my wife and we both needed some time for our selves. For my wife it was time to start over the ballet and some Latino dancing. For me it was time to join the fishing club and start tying the flies I so desperately needed.

My way

So I wrote down what fly patterns I would like to fish next season. And I started tying each Tuesday evening. I tied something like 6 to 18 flies per evening. I think that I missed one or two sessions in that winter and ended up with three fly boxes full of flies. And these were no random flies but a disciplined set. Never have I felt as good as I did next fishing season. Of course I had some patterns I didn’t need but I pretty much had the patterns I did need.

I had done that ever since. I must admit that I don’t have the discipline I had the first winter. I do miss a tying evening bit too often, but I still do well enough.

With good fly selection, you can catch anything...

From Life

Fly selection - Part 2: Caddis pupa

During the fall I think a lot about my fly selection. This is good time to read my fishing diary and make fly tying agenda for the winter.

Last year I had a single caddis pattern. Well, actually I had few others as well, but I mainly fished with only single caddis pattern. That pattern was Green Deep Sparkle Pupa and it worked very well.

This year I tried multiple patterns. (Check the previous post.) For some reason I didn’t tie any Green Deep Sparkle Pupas and came to the conclusion that I should have tied those ugly little bugs.

Now, as the season is ending I have a choice to make for next year. Should I return back to single pattern or use multiple ones? The answer is actually easy, I go with multiple patterns. Why? Because there are many different caddis pupae present during the season and I believe that they are best presented with different patterns – at very least I need different sizes and colors of single pattern.

Fly selection - Part 1

I currently have two fly boxes that I carry to the stream when fly fishing trout and grayling.



A few years ago, I had something like 4 - 6 fly boxes. It has been a part of an attempt to Lighten the Load as in John Gierach's essay.

Number of fly boxes is one thing, the number of fly patterns is another. I haven't counted how many fly patterns I have in my two boxes, yet I think that there are too many of them. And at the same time I think that I still lack a few. Strange, isn't it?

If you look my smaller fly box, you may notice that it has some discipline in it. There are free living caddis larvae patterns in different sizes and colours, Gary LaFontaine's Sparkle Pupa patterns and some POPA Caddis patterns by Oliver Edwards. Bigger box has less uniform selection of dry flies, streamers and big nymph patterns. That is because I put the content of my old streamer box and dry fly box in single fly box. But also the number of flies in specific size and colour variation of pattern is not as disciplined as in smaller box. I'll have to work with that next winter.