The wild trout’s wish list

Get trout to pick you imitation with NEIL PATTERSON’s loop-winged Caenis.

The story
When I watch flies bursting out of their pupae – then popping out of their next skin – I say: thank goodness I don’t have to do that. In fact, I do. We all do. We change skins once a month. Where does all that skin go?
I’m reminded of this during an early morning – or late evening hatch of Caenis when the dun, or sub imago, pushes out of the nymph, lands on your arm and out shoots the spinner, or imago. All this in minutes, covering you in sticky, webby shucks. Yes, I’m happy humans don’t do that. Imagine on a crowded bus.
When I think of Caenis, one the smallest of flies the fly fisherman needs to imitate, I’m reminded that at this time of year everything shrinks. Everything a trout eats is spurwing, pale watery, smut, mosquito, black gnat and ant-size. It’s a big menu of small courses.

Then I think how great it must have been way back then, when the smallest hook you could get was a #16. Nowadays, fly tyers don’t have this excuse. Hooks descend into the invisible. Anything under a #16 involves ophthalmic surgery. Far too itsy-bitsy for the average fly tyer to swallow. Even though something tiny is often the only thing an educated trout is happy to digest. No wonder the average fly tyer has a fear of fly-tying.

In this series of articles, I don’t miss a single opportunity to stress that creative fly tyers should be working towards simplicity. Minimising movements. Arriving at more basic tying solutions to problems that face everyday fly-fishermen. Expressing new concepts in the most down-to-earth fly-tying terms.

Which is why at this time of year, the design of flies I use is completely different from the design I use to imitate naturals earlier in the season. Not just in size, in style of dressing.

When all’s said and done, keeping things in Lilliputt land is a philosophy I try and uphold every time I vice a hook. The logic: the best way to outwit a picky trout is to play him at his own game and give him things he can’t be picky about. In other words, remove as much ‘fly’ as possible that stands between you and the trout.

Once you’ve got your head round this logic, the next step is to find an easy way of getting your fingers round the solution.

The answer here is to minimise imitation to only the most obvious features as seen by the trout – and selecting the minimum number of these features. Then, using the minimum number of materials, and the minimum quantity, reduce the number of tying procedures.

I calculated it. Tying an artificial using conventional procedures – a caenis, for example – requires the following materials: trying thread, whisks for tail, a body material, a rib, wings and a hackle. Six materials, in all. To strap all this down involves, ten procedures.

With the Loop Series, including winding thread onto the hook and tying it off again, dressing a Caenis, black gnat, spurwing or pale watery spinner involves three. And just three materials, including the tying silk. How did I manage this?

Read how Neil ties his Caenis by basically reversing the fly tying process and only using three materials into the bargain in the August 2008 issue of Fly Fishing & Fly Tying magazine.