The Five Main Types of Fly Fishing Flies by
Bob Bastian
Although
there are hundreds of types of flies used for fly fishing, most of them
fall into five specific categories, or types. These types are dry
flies, wet flies, nymphs, streamers and buck tails, and terrestrials.
The main purpose of the fly is to imitate an insect that the fish wants
to eat.
A dry fly imitates a natural insect that is floating on the top of the
water. Fish are very sensitive to any motion of their water and how
currents move the insects they want for food. In fly fishing, if a dry
fly is moving even slightly against the current, the fish will have
nothing to do with it. The fly may look like something the fish
recognizes but it is not acting the same an insect would. The fish
recognizes it as something foreign in the water and leaves it alone.
In fly fishing, a wet fly is imitating a drowned, or drowning, natural
insect and is fished below the water surface. No one is sure if the wet
fly is seen as a drowning adult insect or a nymph from the perspective
of the fish. Most fly fishermen today seem to believe that it is seen
as a nymph. Because of this less and less wet flies are being sold. Wet
fly fishing is the oldest form of fly fishing. It dates back to
descriptions of the early Macedonian people.
A nymph is the stage between an egg and the adult in the life cycle of
an insect. In fly fishing, flies that resemble nymphs are growing
popularity. The nymph fly is just below the surface of the water. When
a fish bulges the water without breaking the surface, he is nymphing.
This means that the fish is eating the natural nymphs just as they are
emerging from their shell. This is what a nymph fly imitates.
Streamers and buck tail flies do not imitate any part of the insect's
life cycle. These types of fly fishing flies are much larger and
represent small bait fish such as sculpin minnows. The main difference
between theses two types of flies is that streamers are tied with
feathers, and bucktails are tied completely with hair. Fly fishing that
uses these two types of flies generally requires more rod and line
manipulation. The movements are supposed to duplicate the motions of
the little fish.
Although most flies represent water insects, a terrestrial fly is made
to imitate a land insect that has fallen into the water. The two most
common terrestrials that are imitated for fly fishing are the ant and
the grasshopper.
Besides these basic five categories of flies, there are many other
kinds of flies that are used for fly fishing. Some of them are a
combination of one or more of the basic categories and some do not fit
into any group. The most important thing to remember is that it doesn't
matter how the fly looks to you, the fisherman. It matters how the fly
looks to the fish.
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won't want to be without. Learn the art and craft of fly fishing, and
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