by March Brown
Just a few flies will do instead of a hundred and one different patterns. That’s the message to learn from the masters.
One of the classic books of fly fishing is Englishman Franks Sawyer’s “Nymphs and the Trout”. Frank Sawyer in the 1940s and 1950s, became the father figure of nymph fishing as a follow-on from the immortal G E M Skues of the 1920s.
Read Frank Sawyer’s book and it is striking that Frank Sawyer used only four nymph patterns – the Pheasant Tail, Grey Goose, Killer Bug and Bowtie Buzzer. Not 104 or 44, just four! All of the four flies are basically simple creations. The Killer Bug for instance, is heavily weighted with a double even covering of wire and the body simply darning wool of a pinkish – fawn shade wound around the hook.
The Pheasant Tail, well known in New Zealand is simple to tie made from cock pheasant herl and copper wire. The Grey Goose uses a herl or two from the wing feather of an “ordinary farmyard grey goose” of “a lightish grey, green, yellowish appearance,” ribbed with a gold coloured wire.
Most notable in New Zealand was Captain G D Hamilton who about 1900 fished the Manawatu River at Dannevirke. He used just five flies which incorporated only “three colours of feathers and dubbing.”
Of course I like a few patterns “on the bench” to coin a rugby phrase. The green stonefly and Speckled nymphs and the Adams parachute dry for example are some.
It does pay to keep an open mind in trout fishing. But don’t overload on fly patterns otherwise you spend too much time tying on flies and then your fly isn’t fishing. It has to be in the water to catch trout.
Some new patterns are good and I think of the rubber legs imitations. Last season, I disbelievingly watched on a back country river, an American friend tie on a Bitch Creek Nymph with its wriggly legs and hook and land a fine 2.5 kg brownie that had refused all our other offerings. An individual’s fly selection is based on those he or she has confidence in. If it’s one of your favourite few, then you will fish it with confidence and with the utmost of your skill.
While it’s foolhardy in trout fishing to have a closed mind in restricting yourself too tightly, the words of Frank Sawyer, Captain Hamilton and others are worth keeping in mind – just a few patterns rather than a proliferation.
I have to admit, I don’t restrict myself to. I have a few too many, one or two well five or six, that I pull out when a fish inexplicably refuses my favourites. But the basic message is don’t spend time snipping off and tying on flies and not fishing your fly.
The Masters will tell you, presentation is very, very important.
