More Tying

Tis' the season..again. I'm in the process of restocking the fly boxes. It's kind of tough and a little bit of a guessing game. There are the standards that you know you have to have like hare's ears, pheasant tails, lightening bugs, etc...the hatches are fairly predictable and you know when BWO's are coming off, they will eat just about any size 16 or 18 standard mayfly nymph if it's presented well. With caddis, there's a handful of pupa's that will work. But every once in a while you find something that just out performs everything else and it may have been some experimental fly you tied in February on a whim, but you only tied a dozen of them. Half-way through the day you're thinking, "Damn, I wish I had tied more of those." So you make note of it and the next winter you tie 12 dozen of them and nothing but whitefish eat them. It's easy to over-think. Fish are fish and the reality is, most guides carry a handful of patterns they have confidence in and a few sizes and if their clients are getting a drift and the depth is right, you are going to catch fish.