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A when-in-doubt-fly that can be a sedge/caddis, beetle, moth or anything you – or the fish – might fancy

#32 Ladybug tied by US tier Bob Kenly

An upside-down latex worm, which is easy to tie and very efficient in high and dirty water

This neat little beetle’s body is made from extruded neoprene cord, which is widely available and a really useful tying material

This pattern, which takes its name from the popular appetizer Guacamole, was inspired by the 'Bar Guac' special at a local fly fishing hangout.

Fly fishing with terrestrials in Slovakia at its best.

Odonata is the Latin name for the order of dragonflies and damselflies. This article is about them.

Snails can be surprisingly high on the trout menu, and a snail imitation can sometimes be a key to success - on stillwaters and ponds in particular.

Caterpillars aren't the most common type of fishing flies, but like a good ant or beetle pattern they can be killers by an overgrown stream bank on a warm summers day.

The crane fly or daddy longlegs is a simple insect with some very distinct characteristics, in particular the very long legs, which are a key ingredient in any crane fly pattern. This pattern uses two materials and is dead simple to tie.

Before you know it, the summer is upon us, and a hopper pattern can suddenly be what makes a day. Tom Biesot's hopper is a good bet. Using a foam body and a couple of neat tecniques 

I've just started watching the third DVD in the series as I write this introduction to the review, and I can only say to those many who want to get into doing fly fishing videos: watch and learn.
In one single minute of introductory footage Niels Vestergaard combines a row of simple but beautifully filmed scenes to illustrate how the angler in these DVDs - Morten Oeland - prepares to go fishing. No time lapses, no effects, no tricks. Just plain old well produced video.

When I asked him “What is this”, he looked straight at my eyes and told me with his hoarse voice: “A fly!”. “What kind of fly” I Kept on with my questions, not thinking clearly. I had never seen artificial flies before. “Well, this is a fly that imitates a beetle”.

The common housefly is indeed... eh.... common, and an obvious insect to imitate. Bulgarian Radoslav Kiskinov has made a simple but very efficient pattern imitating Musca domestica using foam, raffia and peacock herl, which will catch several species when fished dry.

One day, while fishing my favourite water, Barnsfold in Lancashire, which is surrounded on one large side with a good head of pine trees round the reservoir, I noticed quite a few terrestrials being blown on to the water. The trout were going crazy for them.

Way Cool

The tendency is, that flies become smaller and smaller trying to fool the fish. We end up using 7X, size 24 hooks and stealth moves on the river banks. Sometimes you need to go the opposite way, if you want a big fish at end of your tippet.

A nice thing about this Bibio is that it's versatile. Play with it, use lighter of heavier hooks, fish it with or without floatant, wrap a thinner or denser hackle, and so on. But make sure you have some Bibios in your flybox spring suddenly is here.

A bunch of quite realistic flies by a bunch of well known and unknown international tiers. These fantastic flies are not super realistic imitations, but they certainly look real and convincing enough to fool both men and fish!

Harrison Steeve's story about a brand new foam material for terrestrials and many other flies. "You guys are crazy to spend so much time messing around with that loco foam." Needless to say the name stuck. Read the whole story here.

I'll warn you now; the hopper is my favorite pattern. It's big, I can see it, it's fun to cast and present it with a plop, I have fun tying them and the fish just adore the big, juicy, summer delight.

"...once they broke the surface film, the butts would tilt down and the head and shoulders would be the only part of the grasshopper above water. They neither rode high in the water, nor lay in a horizontal plane. My thought was to design a hopper that would duplicate that presentation."