Looking For Help With Fly Identification

[L_soult]

Now that I have a (slightly) better idea of what I'm looking for I've been buying flies that I've either read about, or were recommended to my by others. Before that, I was just buying flies.

I ended up with these seemingly random beauties:

Some of them look like nymphs with wings. Other's look like dries that may or may not stay on top. Are they for under water? Where can I use them? I could try them out, but I could get bad flies confused with a bad day.

We'll anyway, If anyone could ID these for me I'd really appreciate it.

 

[SBecker]

3. Looks like a olive emerger?
4. Cdc and Elk caddis? Some type of hairwing caddis.
7. Quill Gordon Catskill dry fly?

I think if you gave a side profile, many of us could give you a better guess.

L_soult wrote:
Now that I have a (slightly) better idea of what I'm looking for I've been buying flies that I've either read about, or were recommended to my by others. Before that, I was just buying flies.

I ended up with these seemingly random beauties:

Some of them look like nymphs with wings. Other's look like dries that may or may not stay on top. Are they for under water? Where can I use them? I could try them out, but I could get bad flies confused with a bad day.

We'll anyway, If anyone could ID these for me I'd really appreciate it.

 

[L_soult]

Thanks. I hope this makes it a little easier.

 

[outsider]

check your pm

 

[BlkLgbEaDheAd09]

#1 is a yellow sally wet

 

[Fishidiot]

L-soult,
What you've got here appears to be a collection of generic dry flies and wet flies that were either somewhat poorly tied or that have been compressed in storage and have lost much of their original shape (or a bit of both).
It's worth remembering that not all flies can be identified by name and are best considered by group rather than exact pattern. It appears that some of the flies, probably #s 1,6 & 10 are traditional feather wing wet flies. The others are a tougher call but they look like dry flies or ones that could be fished as traditional wets.

 

[JackM]

Bluegill flies!

 

[afishinado]

JackM wrote:
Bluegill flies!

Didn't wanna say it....but it's out there now. :lol:

 

[hbgbswanson]

5 looks like a dry fly known as the Captain in your parts. If you go to Jim's talk to Terry, he's good people he'll help you out.

 

[L_soult]

Thanks for all the responses. I think it helped me figure out where I can use some of these.

 

[mike_richardson]

10 looks like a joes hopper or some sort of hoper.

 

[L_soult]

Hopper? Good for smallies in the river?

 

[albatross]

The pair of flies numbered "5" are a style of dry fly called a trude dry fly. Trudes have hackle at the front, then a rear facing hair wing. They make excellent brookie flies IMHO.

 

[Maurice]

L-

It appears what you have is best described by FI. They look to me like the Overseas ties you can get at walmart in 3 packs for a couple bucks. An experienced flyfisherman can look at those packs and maybe find a handfull of servicable flies on the entire rack. They are IMHO not worth buying. They are tied with oversized soft hackles, unnatural colors such as red collars, tails etc. Bright yellow wings, Hackles on drys too soft to support the weight of the fly, on hooks too big.....

That said I see a few I may use in your bunch.

#1 Winged wet - Might work for a sulphur - too big and too yellow.
#2 soft hackle wets - Non descript (Iso ?) but red tail kills it.
#3 olive emerger - Might get you a few fish
#4 Caddis?- looks too big - Might get you a few fish
#5 pair of trudes? -Non descript -Might get a few fish But black body that big??? I dunno
#6 soft hackle wet/dry - Non descript (????)
#7 Dry fly - might work for a Isonychia (slate Drake) but the tail is white.
#8 soft hackle wets - Non descript (Sulphur ?) but red tail and hackle kills it.
#9 White wet fly - but red tail kills it.
#10 Hopper - But the white color body and red tail kills it.
#11 soft hackle wets - Non descript (March Brown?) but red tail kills it.

Typical of the overseas sweatshop flies they take traditional patterns and then use the wrong colors,size materials/poor quality (hackle stiffness, webbyness) and tie them on the wrong sized hooks.

So what you have here is a box full of garbage. This may bruise your ego a bit right now but save these pics and in a few years you will agree. Ask your brother....he'll likely tell you the same. Its better to get the straight poop early rather than go flailing around with junk. Some of these may work on some stocked trout but frankly I would not carry these flies let alone tie one on.

If you don't tie and are looking fill some boxes, stick with purchasing named flies like "phesant tails, hares ears, caddis pupae, Elk hair caddis, Adams, sulphurs, cahills, bwos, wooly buggers, wets like partridge and yellow/green/orange, from a reputable shop(more expensive) or an online source for cheap flies. I don't buy flies so I don't have the sources but you are going to be putting yourself at a disadvantage using that box of junk. IMHO

 

[L_soult]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'll use these on the river where they hit anything that makes a ripple.

Don't worry about my ego Maurice. Pride is a learning disability.

Although my collection is slowly growing, I think I'm on the right track now.

 

[Maurice]

L_soult wrote:

Although my collection is slowly growing, I think I'm on the right track now.

I agree...so fess up....where did you get the first ones? and where the second batch?

 

[L_soult]

Some of the first group came with a cheap "ready to flyfish" kit from Wally, and I got a few assortments packs from Bob's Army/Navy.

Everything else came from Jim's Sports Center (a fly shop), except a few that were handed to my by guys on the water.

 

[Maurice]

L_soult wrote:
Some of the first group came with a cheap "ready to flyfish" kit from Wally, and I got a few assortments packs from Bob's Army/Navy.

Everything else came from Jim's Sports Center (a fly shop), except a few that were handed to my by guys on the water.

And there you have it....

 

[semperfish]

Pardon me for jumping in here. I'm a complete newb to FF and I am feeling like a sponge; trying to absorb all I can from experienced guys like Maurice. I really appreciate this site and can't wait to spend "too much time" on my local creek this year.

That being said (and this is certainly a small point that probably doesn't matter) I noticed that you are mounting your flies
hook-point-in towards the slits in your boxes. That's how I was doing it and noticed that it had a tendancy to tear the foam when I removed them. I have since rotated them all 180 degrees and now I push the bend of the hook into the slot.
Again, with all the humility I can muster as a newbie, just my $0.002 (that's 1/10th of 2 cents).

 

[JackM]

See, here's the thing. You can push them in from above, vertically, bend pointing down, then rotate to level. But, when you remove them, you must pull the bend upward and remove with the point coming out last. Problem solved: experience teaches.