Picking the right fly for trout fishing can be very hard for a fly fishing beginner. There are thousands of different types and variations of flies. There are supposed to be three types of flies, dry flies, wet flies and nymphs. I think there might be four because I think a streamer fly is also one type. Picking the right fly for the right condition is most important and sometimes very hard to do. Dry flies are used when there is a fly hatch on the surface of the water. You will see the trout rising to take the fly off the surface. One of the big times of dry fly fishing in Michigan is the so called caddis hatch when the big brown trout go after this big Mayfly. This is always night time fly fishing because this is the time the caddis start hatching, about sundown. Any time there is a, hatch on, is a good time for dry fly fishing and it can be fished up stream or down stream. A wet fly will catch all trout, any type, and any size. A nymph can be a little bigger and sometimes weighted to get them down deep. There are are caddis nymphs, mayfly nymphs and some other types. Streamers imitate small minnows with feather sides or other types of material. One of my favorite flies is a black nose dace and I don't know if that is a wet fly or a streamer but it is a killer when fly fishing for trout.
You need to think of different things when choosing the right fly such as size, color and style. The size of the fly is determined by what you are fishing for, the time of the year and water conditions. If you were fishing for brown trout during the caddis hatch, that dry fly is usually a very big fly and if you are fishing trout in the middle of summer on a nice stream you would use a smaller fly. The old saying is “Match the hatch” so you try to fish with the type of flies that are in or on the water at that particular time. You can have a better chance of landing a trout by using a double or treble hook but there is one catch, is that nowadays those hooks are illegal to use or possess on a stream or lake. One fly that is very good is the spawn sack that is tied with yarn. They use different colors like orange, yellow, chartreuse and a few other colors. These are a good flies during the fall salmon and the spring steelhead spawning run. I don't know if they call these a wet fly or what. There are other types of flies that I have never heard of in my part of the country.
In selecting the right fly depends on what type of trout you are after. Dry flies are very good for rainbow trout while something that imitates bugs and grasshopper types are good for brook trout. And like I said before, big caddis flies, work very well when the bigger browns go crazy in June during the big caddis fly hatch.
Eugene Killian
