The key to matching the hatch with your fishing flies is to have a fine selection of fishing flies that emulate, in size, color and movement in the water, of what is living in the body of water you are fishing. Depending on the season and what the trout are feeding you, your selection of fishing flies should adapt. The first step to any mastery of a skill is education, and in particular, memorization. In order to choose the fishing flies, you have to know what your fishing flies imitate.
The fishing flies in your fly box should imitate 13 major categories (orders) of insects that trout eat throughout the year anywhere in the world. In addition to the 13 categories, there are up to 4 stages of each insect category that you will need to know. Lastly, for a few of the categories such as mayflies and stoneflies, it’s very helpful to understand the major species that are found in rivers and their behaviors.
These 13 categories don’t change and the majority of them exist on every river. Their importance to trout vary based on month and seasons. Basic knowledge of the 13 categories, stages, size ranges, color options and seasonal activities will help you understand a great deal about what you can expect to see on any river you fish at any given time.
The season dictates to a large degree which fishing flies the angler employs. Stoneflies for example, have up to a three year lifecycle as a nymph so they are always in the water as nymphs, which is why flies like a prince nymph and pat’s rubberlegs seem to catch so many fish so consistently. In late spring and summer, terrestrial insects like grasshoppers, ants and other land-dwelling bugs find their way into the water and good selection of fishing flies to imitate them is essential.
You have to be prepared to apply your knowledge on the river and fish with the right fishing flies as much as possible. In order to be prepared, you have to be stocked up on the right flies. This is where you either have to tie your own flies or have a fine producer of wholesale fishing flies in Kenya such as Anglers Diet International that produces excellent trout flies at an affordable price, is irrelevant.
You need to match in presentation, size, color and movement, the insects that appear on the river at that specific time of year. This doesn’t mean you have to carry every fly imaginable on the river, but it does mean you need to apply your seasonal knowledge and knowledge of the rivers and regions you will be fishing and stock the right sizes and colors of the insects you expect to encounter.
We sell flies that are affordable and high quality, but we’re not here to just sell you flies, we’re much more interested in being helpful and instrumental to your fly fishing success.
