Fly Selection vs Fly Presentation

Fly Selection vs Fly Presentation

One of the questions I get asked constantly is what is the best fly to use to catch fish?  My answer is simple, stick to the basics and focus on presentation. See, when I started fly fishing, every single article written talked about matching the hatch and how important having the perfect fly was. Every shop I went into told me I had to have ‘x’ fly to catch fish.  I ended up with hundreds of different flies in my boxes. Today, the concept of the perfect fly seems to be overshadowed by presentation. Let’s face it, if you cannot cast accurately and present a drag free drift, your fly is irrelevant.    

15 plus years ago I was talking to a fly shop owner in Breckenridge, Colorado.  He said, “Andy, you see all these flies here? Well, there are two types of flies here, those that catch fish and those that catch fishermen.”  He went on to tell me if I learned to hit a pie plate from 30 or 35 feet I would catch twice as many fish with a crappy fly as a poorly cast, perfect match the hatch ‘fly of the day’.  For several years after that advice I still bought the ‘fly of the day’ that the local shop was telling people was the only thing working in that particular area that time of year. Hey, I get it, they make money selling flies and the more they sell the more they make! But after a while I started to figure it out.  I had a box of flies that caught me!!! That same fly shop owner had told me that a dozen different trout flies is all I needed.  His theory was anglers should spend less time thinking about what is the perfect fly and more time focusing on presenting the fly correctly. About 7 or 8 years ago I purged my fly box to about a dozen different flies. I started breaking down the water into small parts and fishing the water right in front of me. I started focusing on casting accuracy, presentation and most importantly, the right drift. I started catching more and more fish. I usually spend several minutes studying the current to make sure that my cast puts the fly in the best place to give it the best drift possible.

Now, I get there is technical water.  I have fished it.  NO, not the Madison or Missouri.  My home water where I learned to fish and spent 12 years fishing was the Blue River, below the dam in Silverthorne, Colorado. The Blue River is 60 miles from Denver and might be one of the most heavily pressured trout waters in the West. The Blue River had anglers standing ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with another half dozen sitting on the side lines waiting for a spot to open up. If you got 25 yards of free water ahead of you on a weekend, you felt lucky.  If you fished a size 14 dry, it was a big dry and 5x tippet was way too big! These fish saw a lot of flies!  If that river was not tough enough, I would go to the Frying Pan below the dam or the South Platte below Antero or the Arkansas for the Mother’s Day hatch. I get heavily pressured, technical water where fly selection is important.  I also get that if I miss a seam by a foot I missed the fish. If my drift was not perfect, I missed the fish. If I splashed a cast, I missed the fish and probably spooked the pool. A lot of factors go into catching fish and in my opinion, presentation is the most important part of fly fishing.  If you want to catch fish and catch fish consistently, stay away from the fly of the day.  Focus on reading water, finding fish and, most importantly, presenting that fly in the most realistic way possible.