Trout Flies

Trout flies For Brown & Rainbow Trout

There are thousands of different fly patterns available, every fisherman has their own favourite based upon the season, water colours, species of trout being sought and techniques used after all techniques like czech nymphing, upstream nymphing and dapping all have their own requirements.

Rainbow Trout - An Imported Food We Use For Sport

The Rainbow Trout was originally introduced into the UK, New Zealand and Australia from the USA. Rainbows, Gold Trout & Blue Trout are used for stocking trout fisheries and for supplying the food industry. Because it is an introduced species it remains contained in specific lakes, gravel pits, reservoirs although some are in streams and rivers, often as escapees from fish farms where they compete for food and habitat with natural Brown Trout. Rainbows will eat almost anything, from bottom-dwelling invertebrates, to fish and insects from the surface. As they mature they become increasingly piscivorous, this means they become carnivorous and eat mostly other fish! They have a high growth rate, but tend not to breed in the UK naturally as they require warm water temperatures, generally they are bred in fish farms. Another reason for them not breeding is that most farmed fish are usually triploid and sterile - these use all their energy input for growth rather than  reproduction so produce greatest returns for fish farms. Fishing flies for Rainbow's can be done with imitative flies like Caddis,  damsel nymphs or Epoxy minnow flies to impressionistic flies like Gold Ribbed Hares Ear flies and Pheasant Tail Nymphs through to flies like blobs and lure flies or streamers which do not look like anything natural invertebrate or terrestrial but simply trigger the Rainbow Trout's predatory nature!

Brown Trout The Natural Inhabitant of Our Rivers

The Brown Trout is a natural species of fish found in many rivers and occassionally in lakes and fisheries where these many be stocked by fishery owners, in lakes these are rare and often very large.  When feeding the Brown Trout are generally looking for flies that are immitative of the natural food found in their environment, it may be a Blue Winged Olive, Caddis or Sedge or shrimp or Rhyacophila which is the nymphal form of the Green Sedge. Invertebrate nymph fishing flies look similar i.e. they are imitative or exact imitative of the natural. With imitative trout flies the look similar to the natural  or invertebrates found. Generally imitative must be fished so that they look like the 'natural' i.e. when fishing dry fly such as a Blue Winged Olive (part of the Ephemerella  family) they cannot be dragged across the current by the fly leader, after all natural Olive flies do not skate across the water unless they are Caddis, so think about the fly you are using and how it would move on the water.

Rather than imitating exactly an nymph you could use suggestive fishing flies. Suggestive or impressionistic flies. Examples of this are gold ribbed hares ear or pheasant tail, these trout flies do not imitate any invertebrates or natural but flies will appear to look and act like the natural food for the Brown Trout, as a fly fisherman we would describe them as "buggy", they look like a little bug. Above 12" in size Brown Trout will prey heavily on fish so try using woolly bugger or epoxy minnow which are good imitators of small fish.