Flies are one of the cheapest items when it comes to fly-fishing but they are probably an item that more money is wasted on than all the other paraphernalia that we fly fishers accumulate. Flies are often the difference between catching fish and catching nothing at all. There is a big but here, flies only work if you can get them where you want them and make them do the right thing when they get there. Having hundreds of different patterns in a box does little to guarantee fish you have to know how to use them.

The more flies you have in your box the less chance you have of picking the right one on any particular occasion. We only make mistakes when we make decisions and the more decisions you need make the more likely you are to make a mistake.

Choosing the right fly starts when you are buying them in a tackle shop or tying them yourself. Choosing a fly after you have opened your fly box usually means that you have no idea what to tie on to the tippet.

Ultimately choosing which fly to tie on is simple, the ide is to tie on a fly that looks like what trout are feeding on at that moment and then making it behave like the natural. See I said it was simple. Here is another but, you can only choose a fly that works if you have enough knowledge to guide your choice.

The knowledge needed is what trout feed on and which flies are suitable imitations and how you need to make the imitation behave like food.

Wherever trout live they will feed on relatively few food forms most of the time and if you carry flies to imitate those food forms and know how to fish them you will probably catch more then the average fly-fisher. You need to let the trout select the fly you fish as the trout are always right.