When your guide delves into his fly box, takes a good long look and decides on the right pattern there is a bit more that goes on behind the scenes before this moment. Alex Jardine tells us a little more.
When we are out fishing we all have our favourite flies for various situations, for a guide these flies have to tick a series of important boxes. A guide’s job is to provide a great day out on the water and although it is not all about catching fish this is still very much a vital part of the day. Their flies need to cover a wide range of abilities, weather conditions as well as a high attrition rate.
There are a series of rules that all guides subconsciously follow to ensure that their anglers have the best day possible based on the conditions. You may be sat there thinking to yourself “but I’m not a guide” but these rules can be followed by all anglers.
The Guide Fly Rules:
- Effective – Most importantly for a guide they need to carry effective patterns. A guide’s ‘go-to’ flies should be ones that they know work on that particular water or under those particular conditions. For example they may have their top 5 flies for that particular water or top 5 Mayfly imitations. Testing new and unproven flies on a guided day is a risky decision.
- Plenty – There is no point carrying one or two of each pattern, flies will be lost! It is important to carry at least a few of each pattern to cover fly loses. For me I aim to carry three to five of each pattern in each size. Others will carry upwards of 10, particularly those guiding on tree lined rocky streams.
- Simple – Flies should be simple, we all hate to lose flies in the trees and on the bottom. So quick-to-tie patterns like hare’s ears and F-Flies are great go to flies. These patterns are easy to replenish in an evening and very effective.
- Visible – This goes for dries and stalking flies. Everybody’s eyes are different and most people are not fortunate enough to be on the water daily and have their eyes trained in on the idiosyncrasies of the water. Hot spots are the key here, oranges, pinks, white and so on. For dries, parachute patterns are a great go to. And subsurface patterns benefit from hot spot collars – these can also trigger the fish to take.
- Wide Ranging – A guide needs to carry flies for all situations, some for tricky hatches, high water, cold days and also different species. Running out of ideas is not an option for a guide.
As I have mentioned, these are the subconscious fly rules of the guide but all of our fishing can benefit by following these basic rules.
Tight lines!
You can join Alex and Dave Wiltshire this August for a two day Chalkstream Masterclass, for more details contact Alex by email: alex@aardvarkmcleod.com