I have a friend who reached out a few weeks ago with an interesting question. He was planning to have his knee replaced and was hoping to use some of the recovery time to organize his flies. The problem…how to identify the flies. I don’t know if you are familiar with Google Lens, but in this week’s post, I share how to use Google Lens to identify flies.

Fly Patterns by Kaufmann | www.johnkreft.com

Google Lens is a free app that uses visual search to help identify objects, find similar images, and discover related content.

While I encoureage you to use it to identify a fly, it also works for any other item you might find. In fact, I’ve used Google Lens to identify insects and flowers I find along the water from one of my photographs.

Before I show the steps, let’s talk a little more about the problem.

As I mentioned above, a friend wanted help sorting his flies. It was a similar request I had several years ago from a different reader who asked for assistance. In his case, he asked me to do it for him. As I recall, he had 6 or 7 fly boxes with different types of flies mixed together.

I believe organizing fly boxes is a personal thing, but I did my best to sort them into similar flies to match the major hatches. He must have liked it because I received a nice bottle of Woodford Reserve bourbon for my efforts!

I wrote a post back in May entitled Cleaning Out a Fly Box about the process I use to refresh, sort, and fill my fly box. I was cleaning and organizing my Green Drake fly box, but the process can be used by any fly fisher wanting to clean up and organize their flies.

Here is what I recommend:

  • Sort by type – place similar looking flies in separate piles by pattern (or profile), size, and color.
  • Steam flies – I use hot steam to “clean” the flies. This will refresh them to look like new.

Looks like a simple process, doesn’t it?

My example in the post was only sorting mayflies. It might take more time if there is a mixture of mayflies, caddis, stoneflies, attractors, or others.

This will get you started, but it won’t identify the fly.

Before the Internet, books were used as sources. Fly Patterns (2008) by Randall and Mary Kaufmann is an example of a book with several thousand flies shown and named. Here is an image of two pages:

Fly Peatterns by Kaufmann - Example | www.johnkreft.com

It is opened to pages showing dry flies starting with the letter “p”. One example you’ll see below is a Purple Haze, but you’ll notice that fly isn’t listed.

Here is another option, The Fisherman’s Handbook of Trout Flies (1960) by Donald Du Bois. This is an older book I received as a gift from a friend who thought I’d be able to use it more than he would.

The Fisherman's Handbook of Trout Flies by Du Bois | www.johnkreft.com

Interestingly, Du Bois dedicates 1/3 of the book (82 pages) to explaining the different aspects of a fly like wing and body materials. The remaining 2/3 includes 16 pages of two-column alphabetical list of fly patterns, and 185 pages of 5,939 identification numbers for flies in his book. Yes, Mr. Du Bois was a VERY organized man!

Here is an example of the 185 page of tables.

The Fisherman's Handbook of Trout Flies - Fly List | www.johnkreft.com

Below I’ve chosen one fly, the Jenny Spinner as an example.

The Fisherman's Handbook of Trout Flies - Fly Example | www.johnkreft.com

The fly pattern is as follows for fly 4150:

Hackle

Wing

Body

Tail

Ribbing

Tip

Gray (pale blu) cut off top and bottom

W Hkle Tips tied spent

W

3 long W Fibers

N

O (rusty)

In the example above, W is for white, N is none, and O is orange.

I have to wonder what happened when new flies were named and tied? This is a similar issue we see today where so many new flies are invented every year and sold in your fly shop.

In the examples below, I’ve chosen a Purple Haze and Fat Albert. The Purple Haze isn’t listed in either book, but Fly Patterns does list the Fat Albert.

So here is an idea you might try.

Follow these instructions below and give Google Lens a try.

Here are two examples, the first using my Android phone and then a laptop computer.

Step 1 – Open the Google app and click on the camera image at the far right of the search bar.

Google Lens Phone - Step 1 | www.johnkreft.com

Step 2 – Your camera will open. Center the object, in this case a fly, in the outline. Let it focus and click the search button shown below.

Google Lens Phone - Step 2 | www.johnkreft.com

Step 3 – A photo is taken and below it are the search results. In this case, a Purple Haze dry fly.

Google Lens Phone - Step 3 | www.johnkreft.com

Step 4 – I scrolled down a bit to show the results.

Google Lens Phone - Step 4 | www.johnkreft.com

This process may or may not work, but in the example I chose, it worked well the first time. The results describe the fly with a name. You can then dive deeper by adding “purple haze fly pattern” in the search bar.

You’ll see different results in the next example using a laptop or PC.

I began my search using my post from last week, Flies for Patagonia, CFR, and a Little History, as an example. I scrolled down to where I shared links to my RiverKeeper Flies YouTube channel. I clicked on the first video, a Fat Albert fly, and waited for the fly to appear before pausing the video. This will work for any image. I just paged down until I saw the first fly.

Step 1 – Click anywhere in the address bar. The webpage will highlight along with a new option…Google Lens.

Google Lens PC or Laptop - Step 1 | www.johnkreft.com

Step 2 – Click Google Lens and a screen with the words “Select anything to search with Google Lens” appears.

Google Lens PC or Laptop - Step 2 | www.johnkreft.com

Step 3 – Move the cursor over an image of the Fat Albert fly and “click” the mouse again.

Google Lens PC or Laptop - Step 3 | www.johnkreft.com

Step 4 – The picture is selected.

Google Lens PC or Laptop - Step 4 | www.johnkreft.com

Step 5 – A few seconds later, the search results appeared on the right-hand side of the screen.

Google Lens PC or Laptop - Step 5 | www.johnkreft.com

You’ll notice the search results now include YouTube videos, I’m guessing because the fly picture was in a video.

To exit Google Lens, just click above or below the webpage picture.

Don’t expect perfection for either of the two methods shown, but it might help to identify whatever you are searching for.

Leave a Comment below and let me know if it works for you.

Lastly, I don’t use Apple products, but I did a quick search and found these directions for an iPhone or iPad: Go to Google.com. Search for an image. Select an image. At the bottom left, tap Google Lens.

Enjoy…go fish!

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4 Comments

  1. Oh, so fun! I didn’t know about this until you shared it. A new tool to use on the river or later at home. Thanks John!

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