What are Your Confidence Flies?

I’ve spent time recently reviewing some of the posts from early years of RiverKeeper Flies. Turns out I’ve had a lot of content the past 12 years! One of the things I noticed are all the images of successful flies I’ve used and shared with you. You’ll notice a trend that I constantly use the same flies I have confidence in. I used to tie many different fly patterns with the hope of fooling trout, but the longer I fish, the fewer flies I tend to use. I’ll share mine again today, but what are your confidence flies?

The image above happens to be a Blue Wing Olive box, but it’s a good example of the style of flies I use to imitate Mayflies.

Those flies work for me. Other fly fishers I know really like to fish parachute style flies. They just change the size and color to imitate the hatching insect. And who would argue with someone using a Parachute Adams?

I recall many years ago my friend John Shewey giving a presentation about steelhead fly fishing. He said something to the effect, “75 percent of all the steelhead I catch are using my Shewey’s Spawning Purple. Why? Because it’s what I fish 75 percent of the time!”

There’s something to that statement! I could make the same one about Sparkle Duns.

I used to have fly boxes filled with many different flies I tied. I would find a new-to-me fly from a book or nowdays from the Internet and tie a few up. I’d run out of room and have to use the little fly boxes you use when purchasing flies from the fly shop. I’d stick them in my wader pockets and then try to remember where a specific fly was. Or better yet, I’d forget they were there and just use my confidence flies. Sound familiar?

Here is a perfect example. It’s a Black Wing Baetis Cripple. Scroll up to the fly box and you’ll see a row of them on the far left. The row is full. Know why? Because I don’t use them. They are a perfectly good fly, but evidently, I never tie it on my leader.

Well, I’ve simplified my approach through the years. I still follow these rules when selecting a fly to tie on my leader:

• size – select a fly with a similar overall size
• profile – select a fly with a similar wing profile
• color – select a fly with a similar body color

I should point out there are what I believe three different styles of Mayfly fly patterns:

• Parachute flies
• Standard hackle flies
• Flies with no hackle, like the Sparkle dun

For some reason I really can’t explain, I’m partial to flies with bodies on the surface of the water. I know the other two styles work, but I don’t fish them very much. Having said that, I’ve been know to use a Purple Haze to imitate a Mayfly spinner.

My other consideration is the water I fish. Many of you know about my home waters, the Metolius River. I call it a modified spring creek. It’s clear with so many micro-currents which makes it tough to fool trout with a drag-free drift. In fact, I use 6X tippet material hoping the fish won’t see it.

My experience and observations has taught me to use more crippled fly patterns, to imitate a mayfly caught in the nymphal shuck or wings of an adult caught in the surface film. These flies are easier prey for trout.

With that background, here are the three styles of flies I generally use for Mayflies – a Sparkle Dun, RiverKeeper Soft Hackle Cripple, and a simple spinner pattern.

Sparkle Duns

My RiverKeeper Soft Hackle Cripples emulate Mayflies with their wings on the water’s surface. They might be hatching or somehow the wings were caught and an easy meal for a trout.

Spinners are the final stage in a Mayfly’s life and one eagerly awaited my trout. Don’t be without any imitations.

The IOBO Humpy is a fly pattern I found a few years ago because a customer asked me to tie them. If a Sparkle Dun isn’t fooling the trout, this fly makes them rise.

How about imitations for Caddis? Again, I use flies with wings similar to the natural. An X Caddis works most of the time.

The Improved F Fly has a similar profile and is another fly from my customer who asked me to tie the IOBO Humpy. Not only does it work to fool trout during a Caddis hatch, but the olive/dun color is a fly I use for smaller olive Stoneflies flittering across the water’s surface.

An Iris Caddis is a fly I use when Caddis are hatching, particularly in the evening.

Here are two exceptions to my strategy. A PMX Royal and Frenchie. These are two flies we use as a dry/dropper combination in Argentina. I can’t begin to tell you how many fish we’ve caught with this combo. The first one is an attractor fly, while the Frenchie imitates several Mayfly nymphs.

I need to try the combo this summer here in the US!

What are your confidence flies?

Enjoy…go fish!