Choosing 5 Flies: If You had To Choose 5 Flies To Fish With, What Would They Be?
I was re-reading a Tom Sutcliffe book, his first published I believe, “My Way With A trout”, and I stumbled across an interesting chapter in the book I had forgotten about. And I decided to give this exercise a go, hope you do not mind Mr. Sutcliffe…
Basically the exercise is that you have to choose 5 flies that you would fish, for the rest of your life, whether it be stream, lake, estuary etc. Now this is very challenging, but quite fun, I will post Mr. Tom Sutcliffe’s results after I have chosen my 5 preferred flies, if we could call them that, and we can see how similar they are in the end.
The Black Woolly Bugger – One of my most used flies and my go to fly when fishing a sinking line when nothing else is working. I have landed and lost many big trout on this fly.
The D.D.D. – A Tom Sutcliffe invention. My favourite dry fly and my first dry I will cast during a rise or a sight fishing outing, superb fly.
The G.R.H.E – This is my favourite nymph and will not go to any body of water without it.
The White Fritz – Another wet fly, but more of an attractor pattern, I have caught many types of fish on this fly, saltwater and freshwater included.
The P.T.N. – A tossup between this and the R.A.B., but I had to choose another nymph, I have had success on a black PTN in rivers, streams and stillwaters.
What Mr. Sutcliffe chose?
Black Woolly Worm, similar to my selection of the Black Woolly Bugger.
D.D.D., same choice!
Gold Ribbed Hares Ear, another same selection, very interesting.
Adams, I chose a White fritz, as I love my wet fly fishing and getting some reaction takes. But I nearly went with the R.A.B., which in principle, is a similar type of fly to the Adams.
Black Suspending Midge Pattern, I chose a Black PTN, very similar once more.
The result of this exercise? Surprisingly, the results are nearly identical! I never turned the page and we chose similar flies, except for the last of our choices. There might be something to this 5 fly method after all. But I don’t think I will or could be one of those fishermen, I love so many aspects of fly fishing, I have to have a variety of flies, even if most of them are just pleasing to look at.