For 25 years I wandered the length and breadth of Great Britain yattering with either pictures or my fly-tying kit to fly-fishing clubs/Fly Dressers’ Guild/S&TA branches etc. Over the last three years I have restricted my presentations to the area around home and have been playing ‘Devil’s advocate’, talking about the flies I use to catch fish. The interesting thing is that, in youth and early middle age, most of us love to ‘invent’ new flies or modify older flies, the new or modified being (we tell ourselves) better than the old or unmodified. Then, in later middle age, I think that most of us have flies that we can tie easily and, the most ingredient of any good fly, flies that we confidence in.

Last month I did two such tying sessions, one in Cheshire and one in Staffordshire. In the first I dealt solely with the sea trout flies I use, and in the latter began with salmon flies (see my January blog). It was interesting to me, when I showed them the contents of my main box of salmon flies. There were my Orange and Yellow Mallard Shrimps, and my Orange Hackle Shrimp arranged in a right mix-up, as they were after my last day’s fishing in 2011. They took up about a quarter of the Wheatley box. The rest of the box was stuffed with two neat rows of Yellow Dogs, a fly I used a lot up to 15 years ago, but not now, and loads of other shrimp patterns (many Irish) and Stoat’s Tails of a wide variety that have not been touched for at least five years. Incredibly, I had opened that box on scores of occasions and my mind had blotted out the images of those flies I don’t now use and let me see the three in which I have 100% confidence. So this weekend, whilst watching the rugby union internationals, I will remove all those non-fishing flies and tie up lots more of the ones that I do use.

It is similar with trout flies. CdC, parachute emergers, a good Daddy, Green and Grey Wulffs ... I catch lots of fish on relatively few dry flies but, and it is an important but, I still use several very ancient wet flies that are worth their weight in gold. The three spiders in the photograph above are from my fly box: Orange Partridge, Snipe & Purple, and Waterhen Bloa. They have been catching me both river and reservoir trout since I was a lad. Easy to tie, provided you can lightly dub, tie the hackles in by the tip, and don’t overdress (no more than 2½ turns of hackle):

Orange Partridge
Thread: Orange (not hot).
Body: Just thread.
Hackle: Speckled brown partridge.

Snipe Purple
Thread: Purple.
Body: Just thread.
Hackle: Snipe upper wing covert.

Waterhen Bloa
Thread: Yellow.
Body: Lightly dubbed mole.
Hackle: Waterhen under wing covert.

Tie those in sizes 14-18 and you should be able to catch trout anywhere! Indeed, for at least 15 years, those flies formed my basic three-fly cast with a few other essentials that still are essentials. Try a Williams’s Favourite (black tying thread body with fine oval silver tinsel rib, and a short-fibred black hen hackle) or a ‘good old’ Black Pennell, in sizes 12-14 for lake trout, especially when the trout are easing ‘buzzers’. The latter is also a great sea trout fly for daytime fishing in the same sizes.

As I write it is now just over five weeks to the start of the brown trout season here in north-west England, 38 days, to be precise. Thank the Lord!

Get tying, all of you!