In the earlier days flies are created from furs, feathers and threads bound on a hook. They were created by anglers to imitate fish prey. However all that is changing as various type of artificial materials are available to the general public. With the advancement of the materials, new generation of flies are created.
Fly tying is not so difficult if you are willing spend some time to learn the basic. Fly tying is much easier than learning to cast, this is based on my own experience. I’ll touch the basic of fly tying in the fly tying section.
Flies can be categories into several categories :
Dry Fly - designed to float on the surface of the water. Dry flies typically represent the adult aquatic or terrestrial insects. Dry flies are used mainly for freshwater fishing.
Wet Fly - designed to sink below the surface of the water. Wet flies are tied to represent sinking insects, baitfish and other underwater prey. Wet flies are mainly used for freshwater.
Nymph - designed to resemble the immature form of aquatic insects and small crustaceans. Nymph flies are mainly used for freshwater.
Emerger- designed to resemble the not quite mature hatching aquatic insect as it leaving the water to become an adult insect. Emerger flies are for freshwater.
Streamer - designed to resemble baitfish or other large aquatic prey. Streamer are for both freshwater and saltwater, depending on the flies design. Streamer flies are widely used for almost any type of gamefish. In addition variation of streamers design can be found.
Terrestrials - designed to resemble non-aquatic insects, crustaceans and worms.
In addition to the above, various flies design are created with specific fishing purposes. There are flies specifically for pike, salmon, carp, steelhead and many many more. Pratically only our imagination is the limit.
One of the fun in fly fishing is to design and tie your own flies. It just amazing to see your own flies catch fish.