Goto soft hackle patterns for trout

[Mataura mayfly]

Well said Wayne, confidence is a big factor in any form of fly fishing and indeed casting. The only way to improve with both is to be out there doing it in practice, or pay through the nose for tuition. I prefer the out there doing it style of learning.
The only thing to be aware of is the ability to adapt. I myself have had periods during my career of fly fishing, where I have had good success (when others were failing) with a certain pattern or style and stuck rigidly to that method/selection for a long time. As a consequence I missed a lot of fish and fishing opportunities because of my stubborn approach of not adapting to the conditions or the fishes preference for the time. I had gained confidence in my methodology and the pattern I was using to the point of becoming absolute faith and blaming other factors for being "skunked".

Many is the time in the past where I have walked past fish, good fish, because I had no confidence in my presentation or ability to cast/present the fly into the drag free line needed to entice said trout. I soon got sick of doing that, as you can walk a long way between trout here some days. I started to try for these trout, sure I lined a few, put a few down and was snubbed by more, but my ability to cast into these difficult areas gradually improved and success came, soon enough success that I gained the confidence in my ability to plan an attack on these once too difficult fish and open up yet another string to my bow.

Tim, you have gained that kind of confidence in the woolly worm- with good reason, they take fish! Now you need to study the water and the fish/ insect life in that water and be able to have the confidence you are selecting an appropriate fly for the conditions and presenting it as close to natural as your ability allows, success and confidence will come...... with practise.

[hankaye]

raven4ns, Howdy;

Welcome to the forum! Looks like the folks are taking good care of you.
Some of the things about this forum never seem to change, the warm welcome
and the large amount of information the is cheerfully given.
Be sure to check out the reference section of the LINKS forum all the way at the
bottom. There is a link to all the swaps (the 2 open ones excluded), and a whole
mess more of info.

hank

[Mike Connor]

Just a couple of observations. Confidence is good but it has to be based on something, usually it is based on knowledge, experience, and success, so it is absolutely pointless telling a beginner to have confidence in something he has no knowledge of,no experience, and no success. He needs to know what to do and how to do it so that he can gain confidence. Confidence itself wont catch him any fish.

You can have as much confidence as you like in half a brick tied to a piece of string, but you still wont catch any fish on it.

Likewise it is pretty pointless telling somebody how well you do with various flies, it does not help them at all and only confuses them further as they simply do not not know what you are talking about.

Confidence, like (faulty) logic, can also be very misleading, depending on what it is based on, it can merely be a way to err with confidence.

[DUBBN]

Please tell us how you dressed that brick Mike. If anyone can catch a trout on a brick, I am sure you will tell us how to do it.

[Mike Connor]

Please tell us how you dressed that brick Mike. If anyone can catch a trout on a brick, I am sure you will tell us how to do it.

I have neither reason nor desire to tell you anything at all. If you are looking to provoke an argument, or express animosity towards me for some reason or other, feel free, you are simply wasting your time. If you want to help the guy who asked for information, trying to start trouble with me for whatever reason you might have is not likely to accomplish that.

[Mataura mayfly]

Mike, my apologies if my posting do not read as I intended, the whole presentation hint in my first offering and confidence hints in the second, both refer to each coming from practice and learning.
Tim asked of everyone their go to flies, you may not agree with the ideology of leaning upon others choices to define the correct fly for any given water, neither do I as most American methods and indeed fly patterns do not apply to me here. Heck Tim may not even be selecting on advice from here, he may just be curious as to everybody else's fly/flies of choice for soft hackle presentations to trout...... so lets keep it that, let the guy have a chance to start posting and becoming involved in the forum before sledging whom said what.

Tim, my apologies for leading your original question down the garden path and a little astray.

[Mike Connor]

All I can do when somebody asks for information is to give my opinion. It is irrelevant to me what anybody else may think of that opinion and I see no point in trying to justify it. The guy ( and indeed anybody else), will decide for himself what works and what doesn't or what he considers useful information.

By the same token, I see little point in disagreeing with anybody else's opinion, unless I think they are distorting facts of which I am aware, and even then I rarely do it, because it is only likely to result in somebody starting personal attacks for various reasons. Many people are unfortunately completely incapable of sensible and civilised discussion and motivations are rarely clear.

My posts read exactly as I intend, I go to considerable pains to ensure that. I have not "sledged" anybody at all. You might note who attempted to start trouble before adding to it. You may well disagree with my opinions, no problem at all. If you do then I would suggest you stick to that and not try to tell me how I should behave or indeed involve any "personalities" at all. Quite apart from that, if you want to help the guy, then you should stick to doing that, and not tell me what I should do. I will not answer any more of this completely irrelevant nonsense. All you will achieve by posting such is to annoy people and probably put them off.

I do not have any "go to" flies as such because in my opinion it is the wrong approach altogether. I stated such. Unless the guy asks for more information on the matter then I wont post anything else about it.

[raven4ns]

Hi Guys,
I'm sorry that I stirred up such a hornets nest as that was not my intent. It seems most fly fishermen have a special fly they have great confidence in and I figured that some of you might have a couple of soft hackle flies that would fall into that category. To give you a bit of background on myself, I have been flyfishing for approx 40 years and prior to that I used hardware as a kid. My preferred method is dryfly fishing as I love the take. But the dryfly is not always the best way to go so I use a few wets an occasional streamer and on rare occasion a nymph.
Last year I was fishing the Middle river in Nova Scotia and another fisherman had just gone through the run I was intending to fish. I had a Klink on and cast a few times with no results so I switched to the Wooly Worm. Eventually I caught up to the chap who had preceded me through that run and others and he asked if I had got anything. He was quite surprised to know that I caught and released about a dozen trout since he hadn't had even a hit. All told I was on the river for about 4 hours and caught and released about 4 dozen trout. I left the river because I was tired of catching trout with still some 3 hours of fishing time left for the day.
My passion for trout fishing stems in part from the hunt, fishing snags, dead falls etc is fun and catching a trout just where I thought he might be is such a thrill. Catching so many trout so easily takes away that thrill and it got boring. I remember a quote that really struck home to me, while I can't remember the exact words I will paraphrase it for you, " the mark of a true fisherman is not how big the fish must be to satisfy him but how small the fish can be and still satisfy him".
We are blessed to have some large trout in our province, there are brown trout that run 10-12 pounds and heavier in some of the streams I fish but I am quite content to get a 10"-12" brookie on my 3wgt rod. This is a rather long winded reply but I wanted each of you to understand why I posed the question and what I was looking for. While I don't know all the hatches and I'm sure I could catch a lot more fish if I did, it just isn't that important to me. I'm out there to have fun and enjoy myself, catching a trout is a wonderful bonus especially if I had to hunt him down as it were.
Please, let's not have any hard feelings over a silly question I asked. We all love this sport regardless of our approach to it. Thank you again for the warm welcome.

Tim

[Mike Connor]

There are a few generic soft hackle wet flies that can be very successful indeed, but how successful they are depends on quite a few factors. A couple that come to mind are a hare's ear ( thousands of variations), a Stewart's Spider, a snipe and purple, and a few others. Personally I prefer to "match the hatch" as well as I can. So my choice of fly depends on what is happening on the water at the time. There is often disagreement about these things as opinions differ considerably. I think there is a huge difference between fishing something like a woolly worm, or a woolly bugger, and various small soft hackles. Your question is not silly at all, and in fact is not easy to answer at all either. The concept of "go-to" flies is a difficult one for me, as I don't think it is a good idea to divorce the flies from other factors and choose a fly regardless of them. One can confidently fish a woolly worm or a woolly bugger in lots of situations where it might well be difficult to choose or fish a small soft hackle. Not least because of the massive choice involved.

[Otter]

I have some "GOTO" flies, I need a small number more. The Goto ones are ones that I know to work quite well in particular circumstances and thats when they are used - everything else is a work in progress.