Feb 21

Written by: KenP
2/21/2010 8:59 AM

We had a lot of snow melt yesterday, which means stream foot access is improving every hour. We will have even more today, especially since the ground is getting exposed in southern exposure areas. It might be worth while going for a walk with the rod today. The flows are up a little but clear, with some slight cloudiness in the lower parts of the main stem possible.

Recently, we have seen a lot of poeple taking advantage of some tying time. Right now you are probably being bombarded with fly tying articles of "new" or cool patterns. This is all great, but what if those new cool patterns don't work. I'm guilty of this seasonal illness where I tie new stuff only to find that I don't have enough of my go to flies in the box when I need them. How do I deal with this (in theory)? Well I first take an inventory of my box. For example, I use two styles of hare's ear (my go to nymphs). Right now, I have two unused and one used one in one style, and none in my other style (pretty lame huh?). So today is hare's ear tying day. I will load up for the first part of spring. I am also chipping away at the three of four (or five or six or ......) other go to flies I use.

The new ties, that I can't help but trying, are being built into my tying schedule in between my go to fly tying. That keeps my tying balanced and ensures that I have what I need when I need it. One other thing I like to do is to try to improve on my go to flies. I will tie varients (about 1/2 dozen each) to try out during the season. This has proven very effective over the years. I don't think I tie any of my existing go to flies following the original pattern any more. This makes sense because the original patterns of our classic flies were designed at somewhere other than the White Clay Creek or the even the Delaware River Drainage Basin. So the flies were designed to imitate a different type of benthic invertebrates which are slightly different than those living in the White Clay Creek. Logic suggests that the classic design of a fly should be able to be modified to the stream it is being fished. All right, I am starting to babble.

In the perfect world, target to have a dozen flies of each of your go to flies in each of the go to size. Fill you box out with the "new" flies that look promising. Clean out old flies and test flies that didn't work from last year and give them to your friends, beginners, or your local club for banquet raffles. These flies are still good, but may not be the best for your fishing style. Other individuals may quite posibly have greater success with flies that don't work well for you.

Douger

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