Cascade Fly Co. - fly selection

The flies you should carry in your fly box all depend on what type of water your fishing and what type of fish your going after. Im mainly going to be talking about trout. The streams of the cascades of western Washington (where I fish), usually don’t hold a lot of food. The trout in these waters are generally smaller than in Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming etc. Most of the time the fish are opportunistic, you really don’t need to match the hatch all that well. The only time you would need to match the hatch is when there is a significant hatch which rarely happens. A majority of the time you will only need one of the big three (Elk Hair Caddis, Royal Wulff, Para Adams) Some people use the Elk Hair Caddis about 90-95% of the time. At bare minimum you should have these three dry flies in various size (10-18). You should have more flies than this because there will be times when these wont work.

The two main types of insects your trying to imitate are Caddis and Mayflies. For caddis, you really don’t need that many flies, an adult(Elk Hair Caddis), an emerger (X-caddis), and it wouldn’t be bad to carry a caddis nymph or underwater emerger. These flies should be about size 10-18. Mayflies require a greater var flies, im not really sure why. Flies imitating mayflies should run from about size 12-20. These include Adams, Parachute Adams (previously mentioned), and Elk Hair Adams. For emergers olive or tan soft hackles, quigley’s cripple, and Speckled Spinner Sparkle Duns (aka comparadun). For nymphs, Gold Ribbed Hares Ear, and Pheasant Tail Nymphs. For adults or spinners, I only have one fly and that is the Poly Wing Spinner. Sometime the fish will basically bite anything that resembles food, that is where attractor patterns come in. They are made for a few purposes, one is obviously to be bigger and more flashy to attract attention better, another is to make it easier for the angler to see, and lastly to imitate a wider range of insects. There are a lot of attractor patterns out there, too many to name. So im just going to talk about my favorite ones, for dry flies theres Royal Wulff, Adams Wulff, Humpy, Stimulator, Cascade Killer, and Royal Trude. These flies run as large as size 8 and rarely go smaller than size 16. For nymphs theres mercers trigger, lightning bug, Prince Nymph, Copper John, Zug Bug, and the Woolly Bugger. It also wouldn’t hurt to have a few stonefly nymphs. Notice the big three that I talked about in the beginning of this article have one from each of the three types, Elk Hair Caddis(caddis), Parachute Adams(mayfly), and Royal Wulff(attractor).

Lakes are much different than streams, they contain more nutrients and have more aquatic insects. As a result trout grow larger, but they are also a little more selective. Instead of 2 types of insects like in streams, there are around 5 or 6 types. First, there are chirnomids, flies range from size 12-20. I carry them in only 14-18 but it wouldn’t hurt to be more prepared. There are a ton of different patterns for chironomids, you need to cver three different phases, the larval phase is imitated with a bloodworm pattern, the pupa phase,which is used 95% of the time, has a few popular ones, these include the TDC, Chans Frostbite chironomid, and a basic chirnomid. I like to use the basic chironomid which is the one I have in the fly tying section. To imitate the adults go with a Griffiths Gnat in size 20. Flies to imitate scuds run from size 10-18, just a regular scud will work (see fly tying page for a better description). The colors most people use are olive, tan, grey, orange, and pink. Dragonflies very large in terms of insects, there imitations are around size 4-8. Any regular imitation such as the one on the fly tying section will work. Damselflies are a little smaller than Dragonflies, they range from size 8-12. Check the flytying page for a description of a Damselfly nymph. Other flies to go along with the flies I have already mentioned are Muddler Minnows, Flashback Pheasant Tails, Black Leeches, Olive and Black Woolly Buggers, and Bunny Leeches. You might have noticed that I didn’t give specific names for a lot of these flies. That is because I either invented the fly or it is so widely used people just call it by the type of insect it imitates.

If you live in Western Washington these are probably the only flies your going to need. If you live somewhere were you need to match the hatch, your going to need a lot more flies. These include Blue Winged Olives, Pale Morning Duns, Light Cahills, Mahogany Dun, October Caddis, Skwala Stoneflies, Salmonflies, Golden Stones, etc, and you’ll need to get all the phases for each fly. These are nymph, emerger, dun, and adult. The exception to this is stoneflies, all you’ll need are nymphs, and adults, since they crawl out of water and emerge on land.

Fly Selection