An important part of my bead head fly box. I am a firm believer that when fishing rivers you have to get down to where the fish are holding and also that flies particularly in faster running water should include “hot spots”. These flies satisfy both these requirements.
Fishing to spawning fish isn’t everybody’s idea of fun . . . it certainly isn’t mine so I just don’t do it. In the interest of completeness however I have included a selection of pre and post spawn run flies that suite this style of fishing.
Detailed below are the flies that I carry in my ‘pre and post spawn run’ fly box, the sizes that I carry and the colours that I carry.
I have lumped the flies that I prefer for Australian Native fish into one group as by in large they are all structure oriented. they tend to frequent areas with structure such as weed, sunken logs, rock bars, under cut banks, holes and drop offs etc. and generally react in much the same way.
When I am traveling to tropical destinations I take these flies as well as my estuary fly box for flats fishing, my bass box for anywhere there are lilies and my offshore fly boxes for any pelagic fishing.
You could easily go over board with your selection of flies for offshore fishing as there are heaps of options out there. I don’t think you have to do that and that just the few flies listed below in a couple of sizes and a few color combinations will do the job in 95% of offshore fishing situations
Boobies are an essential fly if your going to cover all the bases with your impoundment fly fishing techniques. They are also great flies for targeting other species especially Australian Bass. because they cross over between species, have specialist applications and and are bigger flies any way I have separated them out into a separate fly box.
There are more hoppers flies out there than there are actual hopper varieties and you can carry a few of each if you like but I have opted to carry just three patterns that work well in most situations. There are of course a couple of flies in my dry fly selection such as the elk hair caddis, claret daddy or humpy that fill any perceived gap in my hopper selection.
When fish are feeding on emergers it is important to be fast and accurate in your casting and to match the form and function of the natural. When the naturals are large enough in individual size one very successful technique is to fish an emerger pattern on top as both a fly and an indicator and a nymph or midge pupa suspended just below it. Hits are often on the dead drift or on the lift.
It’s a subtle distinction between what I consider streamers and pulling flies and what I consider ‘loch style flies’. The main difference for me is that whilst each of the flies below work well in a team of flies they also fish well by them selves. My favorite woolly bugger flies are the same. The flies in my ‘Loch’ selection are different. Sure you could fish them on their own but by in large I regard each of my ‘Loch’ flies as fishing best when fished in a team of flies.
Loch Style fly-fishing involves fly-fishing from a boat, side onto the wind, using a system incorporating one or a number of flies. There are both wet and dry lock style fishing techniques and these are my favorite loch style flies.
