It’s that time of year again. The winter doldrums: after the presents have been shopped for and opened, the feasts have been eaten, maybe some happy/sad tearful goodbyes. There’s a New Year’s lull that can last until after we’ve hauled the Christmas tree to the arroyo, when it can be difficult to account for ourselves. The responsible fly-fisher might, or probably should, recognize this lull as the signal to replenish our fly boxes.
Over the course of a fishing season, tree branches, rocks, and hopefully a big trout or two consume an amazing number of flies, depleting supplies to a point where we have to dig into our B-team patterns that are either chewed up or haven’t ever caught a lot of trout. My usual New Year’s resolution is not get to this point: through Jan. until Valentine’s Day I’ll tie flies like a maniac so I’ll have every bug I’ll need when the Rio Grande caddis hatch blows up in April, or when the green drakes and stoneflies drive the Conejos browns and rainbows insane. May this be the year I keep my promise.
Where to start? Cover the aforementioned hatches, the caddis, stoneflies, and drakes, pale morning dun mayflies for the Cimarron, blue-winged olives for the autumn Pecos and the Los Pinos. In my laziness, I usually focus on the general Heinz 57 patterns, the flies that represent a number of different insect species without imitating any of them exactly. The Hare’s Ear Nymph is one such fly. The multicolored fur on a rabbit’s ears captures brown or tan insects. The hairs trap air bubbles and make the fly look alive. Peacock feathers used in Renegades or Prince flies reflect lots of colors too, covering many bases. Pheasant tail fibers do the same, which explains why the Frenchie fly works so well.
Covering all the bases requires asking as many questions as possible. Do I have enough flies across the color spectrum? Natural insects come in shades of brown, olive, or gray, but sometimes yellow (in the case of grasshoppers and yellow sallie stoneflies) and orange (salmon flies). White, though rarely encountered in nature, can also trigger a trout to bite. Same with black. Red, blue, and purple flies appear differently to trout than to us, depending on the angle and brightness of light or the depth at which they’re fished. Finally, decisions must be made on whether one’s colors should be dull or sparkly.
Size is obviously important. Minnows, grasshoppers, and crane flies are the hamburgers. Blue-winged olives and midges are consumed as humans eat peanuts and popcorn, in small bites that, if repeated constantly over hours, make the eater get fat.
Shape matters. Worms are long and thin. Grasshoppers are thick. Flies resembling fish eggs should be round.
Like new cars, one’s flies should come with an array of fancy accessories. Metal beads will help flies sink. Elk hair and foam will help them float. A copper bead sends a different signal than a gold or silver one. A white calf-tail wing is easier to see but may alarm a fish in the middle of a bright sunny day. Rabbit fur and marabou feathers give a swimmy impression when wet, and God help you if your flies don’t look swimmy when you fish at Eagle Nest. Similarly, you could be severely penalized for fishing flies without rubber legs.
Filling the fly box can be overwhelming if one overlooks the advantages of being able to make one’s own flies. First is the money one saves by tying. Homemade flies cost cents while purchased flies cost dollars, a fact that becomes poignant when a spruce tree eats it on your first cast.
Second and most profound is that fly-fishing is an art, a seemingly endless way to creatively express yourself. Fly-tying is a big part of that. Yes, that Renegade (a style of fly most of us understand to be uniquely New Mexican) you tie might look exactly like the one at the store. So put a bead on it, some legs, or use red thread instead of black. Then it becomes yours.
