Fly-fishing

A dynamic duo, every fly-fisherman should have one


Photo Credit: courtesy Don Oliver

A long, long time ago there was a television show that featured a dynamic duo (DD), known as Batman and Robin. For those of you that don’t remember T.V. in black and white you probably have no recollection of this show. However, all of us old folks remember a dumb and funny show. We also remember the DD always worked together, fighting crime and always coming away victorious.

For fly-fishing, I believe everyone should have a DD. To be more precise, you need one wet fly and one dry fly that you can always turn to when nothing else seems to work. If you’re like me the number of distinct fly patterns in your boxes easily comes to 50. Add in salt and warm water patterns and that number will most assuredly tally three digits.

With those kinds of numbers it is easy to understand why a fly-fisherman can spend hours changing flies searching for just the right pattern. Your DD should be patterns that can be used in both moving and still water. They should be two flies you have confidence in, and never hesitate to use. They should be the flies you would use if money was on the line, or you needed to feed your family.

For me, my DD is comprised of one fly designed by Lee Wulff and the other by Russell Blessing. They are a Royal Wulff and a Wooly Bugger.

By design the Royal Wulff is one color scheme, while the Wooly Bugger comes in a multitude of colors. My favorite color for the Wooly Bugger is green. Why do I like these two? I believe they resemble nothing in particular and everything in general. Also, I can see a Royal Wulff, even a size-18. More importantly, one or the other always seems to come away victorious.

As a test of my theory I suggest you tell your significant other that you are going to conduct a very important scientific experiment that will take at least two days on the water. On the first day take your entire collection of cold-water flies, except your DD, and go fly-fishing. Keep count of the number of fish you catch. The next day take only your DD. At the end of the second day compare the number of fish you raised. If it is a tie, repeat the experiment. Since this is for science you should have no trouble getting permission to do the test several times to verify your results.

I have had trout and small mouth bass take the Royal Wulff, and had trout, bass, pike, carp, and pan-fish take the Wooly Bugger. I think you’ll be surprised how well your DD works. Now, do the same thing with your warm-and salt-water flies.

This, of course, means fly-fishing in places other than Durango. There are terrific lakes in Texas and Oklahoma for the warm water test. Anywhere along the Gulf Coast, Bahamas, or Belize will offer you endless days to come up with a DD for saltwater.

Give this experiment a try. I think you’ll have lots of fun, and be pleasantly surprised with the results. Once you put your action plan into effect, let me know how you pulled off going to all those places. I would love to try some new reasons to convince my significant other of why I need to travel.

 

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