1. Troutnut Forum
›
2. Fly Tying
›
3. Am I being Too literal ?

NIIIICE looking fly, man!!!

Tell me how you do on it...

Jonathon

Very nice work! I assume you just tie this for show and wouldn't fish them as they are too pretty to lose.

Thanks Jonathon and Wbranch . To be honest , I probably will not fish this fly as I tied this one while making a step by step tying CD and will sell it with one of the cds. But it is very durable and could be fished if someone chose to .
Fred

I don't see how a fish could resist it - it looks too good!

Curious to know, how long did it take you to tie and what size hook is it?

Jonathon

Jonathon I'm not sure how long this fly will take to tie as I was tying and photographing each step as I went.None of the steps are extremely difficult or time consumming . The hook used is a Mustad 94859 size 20.

Fred

Very nice, Fred.

-Shawn

Thanks Shawn.

I think the question you were asking was if the fly is too lifelike. Dave Whitlock writes pretty strongly against doing this as trying too hard to be lifelike can sometimes tip off a fish. In otherwords, if you're too exact and make one little error they will more than likely be turned away than they would be if you were just tying to simulate a profile. That's always been my take on it but most of you guys know a lot more than I do. It looks like a nice fly. I for one fear paint because it has a different glisten underwater than some natural products do.

Westco thanks for taking the time to comment . The title of this post was my attempt at humor.I literally tied a "FLY" .

I once heard of a study where two flies were presented to fish , one with 5 legs and one with 7 legs. The one with 5 legs was eaten repeatedly while the one with 7 was ignored. I don't know if this is actualy true or not . I tend not to believe those that spout certianties about fish. And try to stay away from words like allways and never. Fish are the best judges of our flies .They will either take it or leave it. Find out for yourself what the fish where you live will eat, what color, what size . Find out if they prefer impressionistic or imatative patterns.And just when you think you have them all figured out something will change and the flies that worked last week wont get a second look.
But this is why we all tie more than just olive wooley buggers. We continue to stretch our imagination and skill to try and find a pattern that will work when others wont.I don't know if my patterns are getting me closer or farther away , but I'm having fun and fool a fish from time to time in the process.Thanks again for your comments, Fred

Hey Fred,

Well said.

BTW,

Is this why your flyfly appears to only have 5 legs? :)

Regards,

Kurt

I think Fred's comments are extremely valid. Until one of us can turn into a fish and then back into a human again, who the heck knows what a fish is thinking?? Lately I have been having tremendous success on trout with an old pattern called Joe's Hopper, which is a rather impressionistic representation of a grasshopper. In fact, I tell non-fly-fisher-persons that I show it to that, no, it doesn't look exactly like a grasshopper, but to a fish looking at it from below, it looks enough like one that they blast it with gusto! (The takes are never subtle, if you know what I mean.) Dave Whitlock even tells in an article in the latest edition of Flyfishing & Tying Journal how he combined parts of a Joe's Hopper with a Muddler Minnow to come up with a "realistic" hopper pattern as his Dave's Hopper - which I have also tied in the past, but which is more complicated and slower to tie with the spun-deer-hair head.

Well, the Joe's Hopper pattern is just hammering 'em for me, including a 12 1/2" brookie this past evening (see my post for a photo) and a 12-fish day on a local stream. Yet, who's to say that more exact imitations wouldn't work as well or even better? I would find it surprising that a fish would have the time, patience, and brainpower to look over a fly and think to itself, "Well, that doesn't have the right number of stripes or the right shade of 'burnt umber' to be a real one so I'm not gonna eat it!" when survival is at stake...on the other hand, those who fish considerably more pressured waters than I favor might well say that if the fly "isn't quite right" the fish will turn their noses up at it. I absolutely hate crowds and the pounded waters they fish so your results may differ...but I think Fred's flies will likely catch loads of fish, especially those big fat southern sunfish that live in Fred's vicinity and take the place of trout quite nicely, as they did for me in the Texas Hill Country, especially the San Marcos River.

Also, beware the "wisdom" of others over your own personal experience. Someone not long ago on here tried to tell the rest of us that we shouldn't tie "eyes" on our flies because, well, the predatory fish that might hit our streamers could see that our fake baitfish were looking at them and "could see them coming", and would therefore refuse our presentations in favor of "eyeless" flies that "couldn't see them coming." Said poor individual had read that in a magazine somewhere, and was practically laughed off of the site by those of us who absolutely HAMMER the fish on our "eyed" streamer patterns (such as the Clouser Minnow and my own Killer Bass Fly). Moral of the story? Don't believe everything that you read just because it was written by an "expert", such as Dave Whitlock who actually violated his own "rule" by creating a MORE realistic grasshopper imitation! You need to go out and throw a lot of fly patterns around yourself on your favorite waters and see what works for YOU.

Jonathon

Fred,
I suggest you find a copy, perhaps, at your local library for a book by Bob Wyatt, Trout Hunting, The Pursuit Of Happiness. Read the section on fly design. The whole book is great, of course, but I really enjoyed Bob's ideas on fly design.

Myself, I believe that more impressionistic flies work better than those that completely duplicate the insect in appearance. This is not that I do not admire a tier that ties realistic flies.

A tier who I think does an excellent job combining impression with realism is Steve Thornton. I met Steve a few years back, and he is an excellent tier. http://www.virtual-nymph.com/

Mark

Hi Mark, I would guess that most of us could fish with conventional tackle and live bait if we chose to. So my tying realistic flies goes beyound just catching fish. It's about challenging myself as a tier and a fisherman .You should try it. You may find some aspects you could incooperate into your flies to give you more options on the water.
Fred

These threads usually lead to questions.

Questions like, what realistic flies were tested against what impressionistic flies?

Was the testing done with Dry flies, Wet flies or Nymphs?

Anyway, I guess you can see where this is going.

Flies that imitate the natural are what most, fish with. Whether it's the flowing material or flash of a baitfish, the color and size of a specific insect, the imitation of fluttering wings on the water with hackled dries or the more imitative Realistic Fly.

All work and all have times when they don't. They're all options that allow us as individuals to try and pick what we are most successful with.

Opinions by "Experts" as what is worth trying and what is not is in "my opinion" worthless without actual test results.

But of course, this is just my worthless opinion.....

Haha. Just tell me what you think. I'm a jackass. The truth is that you guys are so much more experienced with a range of flies that I've never seen before that I just assumed you were tying something like that. I'm very familiar with flies from one very specific region. Now that I look at it, well like I said, I'm a jackass. Touche sir.

Westco I'm sorry. I did not intend to make you feel bad by my comments. You were just commenting on my fly which I do appreciate.

I tend to get a little defensive when it comes to realistics.
Fred

I wasn't offended. It one of those posts where I barely even looked at it before I started acting like I knew what I was talking about.

We get deer flies out my way, and in the fall they become a real problem attempting to make a daily float for my wife and me. We carry a swatter in the boat. What a tragedy it would be if I was that good at tying, and then had one of those lying on the deck, and my wife ruin it with a heavy handed swat!!