Simple is Best

One of the great joys of fly fishing is tying, sometimes designing, your own flies and then catching fish with them. Fly-tying can be a hobby in its own right. We admire the skills and patience in tying flies so intricate that they could be pinned on an insect board in a museum and they wouldn’t look out of place. However, we look at trout flies and the food they imitate with human eyes. We have the eyes and the brain to appreciate the delicate details of a mayfly. How do trout really see flies when viewed through the water or looking upwards silhouetted against the sky? From a purely practical point of view, is there any value in making such intricate flies other than for the pure artistry? In reality, most insects and other trout foods have fairly simple common shapes, and not surprisingly the answers to the questions are ‘simple is best’. Not long after I met Richard Krimmer, owner of the superb ‘Currawong Lakes’ in Tasmania, we compared our most effective fly patterns and these proved to be the simplest and quickest to tie. We jokingly referred to these as our ‘two-minute’ flies. Below is a selection of those quick and simple flies that consistently fool fish.