Help with Flies

[Rickb326]

Last year was my first year fly fishing. I had great success and really just had a great time being in the stream. I caught almost every fish last year with olive and black wollie buggers. This year I really want to stem out from that. I want to use some nymphs and some dry flies.
I purchased some flies but my problem comes with remembering what is what. Especially when it comes to knowing whether someting is dry or wet. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also I mainly fish the DHALO parts of deer and pine creek. If anyone could shed some light on what flies would be good to try.

 

[McSneek]

Rick - if you have flies that you purchased that you now can't identify try to go on line to Cabela's, LL Bean, TCO or any other outlet that sells flies and see if you can match up what you have with their pictures. Also, scan some of the threads on the fly tying forum on this site and you;ll find some with pictures of various flies guys have tied.

Traditional dry flies typically have wings and stiff hackle that is spread fan-like behind and in front of the wing. Nymphs won't have these upright wings.

It's great to expand beyond woolly buggers but some times they seem to be the only thing that works!

 

[troutpoop]

The last Orvis catalog had about 20 pages of flies for sale with color pics.

 

[Rickb326]

Thanks for the ideas. I found a lot of them so far by looking at pictures. My problem was that I got a lot of local favorites from llbean and didn't give much attention to what they were. I have one that is still up in the air. I will have to post a picture of it.

 

[ryguyfi]

all forms of caddis and midges will work for those streams by you.



Check out the pictures of dries vs nymphs. If it has some sort of round feather tips (looks like a circle of stiff fibers from a feather) and sits at about a 30 degree angle when you toss it in a cup of water, then it's a dry (particularly mimicking a mayfly). Or the circular feathers are in a "parachute" style and it will float parallel to the water.

The other main dry is a caddis. It has a bunch of hair parallel to the hook on the back of the hook and will be very buoyant.


Mainly everything else is a nymph. Nymphs are designed to sink, so some may have a bead head, or have weight underneath the materials.


Check out the catalogs you get in the mail too. That will help.