In Praise of Scruffy Flies

By Ben Hope

I’ve been an angler and fly tier for decades and it’s easy to get sucked into tying neat — strive or — artistic creations. I was. But I’ve modified any thinking and I’m better in myself for realising that the perfectly tied fly is not necessarily what the trout will opt to take.

That perfectly tied fly may be good for the human spirit and perception and personal satisfaction but the trout is the final judge. What the trout says, goes. It’s boss.

Yes.I’ve always been proud of tying a clean, pretty fly. but perhaps, just perhaps the reality is different?

Ever noticed how beaten up, how scruffy a trout fly gets with use and a few trout to its credit, it gets some feathers torn off and it’s bedraggled, but it’s fish catching powers increase?

The good old spider wet fly is not a neat symmetrical one. It’s just a suggestion of a sparse body and sparse hackle. In fact sparseness is an attribute. This strongly suggests that trout flies whether tied by yourself for bought from a tackle shop are over-dressed.

But, I suspect trout might go for scruffy flies better—and I might have a theory to explain for thinking like that. It’s to do with predator-prey relationships.

Predators pick off the easy ones first, you know the sick, the weaker of the prey.This isn’t a new idea. It’s long been recognised by competent biologists that a predator benefits the prey population by picking off the sick and/or weaker ones. This ensures a quality prey species. The stronger, more alert ones escape or don’t get picked off so much. Or the predator instinctively knows a weaker one.

Instinctive

I read of one chap who studies this closely.  He used a small mesh net to collect hatching insects. A number looked miniature wrecks as they struggled to get out of their larval shucks, naturally scruffy with the shucks party attached. The hatching flies struggling in the surface film to get out of their larval skins are the most vulnerable phase if their hatch. Temporarily they are trapped.

Now I’m not suggesting trout have brains to think “Ah! Easy meat” that one. Their brain may be small and you can argue they’re not intelligent, but they’re highly instinctive.Why is the Hare and Copper nymph so good? It looks scruffy. Why is dubbing whether hare, possum, rabbit or seals fur so good? A major factor is their tiny little fibres stick out here, there and every which way.

So in a hatch of mayfly in the day time or in the evening caddis flies, the ones you see in the air are the fully hatched and fit ones.The only insects that we try to imitate with perfectly tied flies were flying, out of reach of the trout which were picking off the ones halfway out if their shucks struggling in the surface film.

So if you’re tying flies don’t worry if as you take it from the vice, it looks scruffy and not neatly symmetrical like that perfectly tied artificial fly. The trout don’t notice the imperfections — in fact they love it.