[silicone boy]

OK, the subject of realistic fly patterns came up in the "tiny flies" thread. What exactly is meant by "realistic". I recently got those EthaFoam wings made bu Spirit River and I tied a BWO the other day using one of these rather than feathers or whatever for wings. Darn it looks realistic! But does it actually catch fish, and if so, why don't we always use wing shaped wings rather than hackle and feathers? Just wondering.

 

[TopSlugger4]

I would say the closer you are to the real thing the better. However, there are certain situations Ive had dry fly fishing where something slightly out of the ordinary sticks out more in a big hatch. As for your question of why not to use wing pads as opposed to hackle and feathers, I would say it probably has to do with boyancy. A lot of the synthetic material looks very real but dries on synthetic materials don't tend to float as well as flies tied with hackle, CDC and other dry fly material.

 

[silicone boy]

Well, I don't know how it floats, but one of my pre-cut winged BWO's fooled my wife this afternoon when she found one on the floor (I guess I had lost it). She though it was a real bug and tried to vacuum it up

 

[rottal]

I like to make my patterns as realistic as possible, but sometimes ive noticed that profile is more important...especially with midges, as its easy to put too much material on a size 22 fly and then it is just too bulky and does not mimic the real thing as well. Ive also messed around with tying realistic looking midge dries, but honestly havnt noticed that they work any better than my "quick ties" of just thread and CDC.

as far as damsel patterns, i definately noticed a difference with my "looks just like the real thing" ones compared to my "close enough" ones. the big thing ive noticed that makes a difference is how you retrieve them...no matter how realistic, the fish just wont hit them as much if you are not careful about the retrieve you employ while using them. an old buddy of mine i used to fish with (that now guides in montana, the last time i heard) would catch fish 5 to 1 over me just because the twist retrieve he used was much smoother than mine...and we would use the same patterns. this is one instance also that the realistic patterns we fished didnt work as well as the ones we just tied with green ostrich hurl, mono eyes, and thread. The ones we had with the pre fabricated tails made by Stalcup (no insult meant Mr Shane, if you are readin this ) looked awesome, but man, they just didnt catch fish as well. that seemed to be the deal that summer, but i wont give up fishing them...they just look waaay too good in my box to just let them sit.

 

[fishingkats]

there is a guy by the name of paul whillock
wow you need to see some of his flys
but i guess if you do put in 180 hours into a fly
it better be awsome


and bob mead is another good tyer
he has a mosquito that looks like the real thing
but at a $100 it better be

just some fly tyer names that if you want to look up and check out some of there work they are real good

my 2pennys

 

[silicone boy]

Whillock does some amazing work

but I wonder if it would ever catch fish.  Case in point, Discount Tackle has a foam hopper that looks very realistic, but I haven't had nearly the luck with it as with less realistic imitations.

 

[silicone boy]

Some more incredible imitations

 

[epic]

next they will put little motors in them that twitch their legs like when they land in the water and try to swim to shore.

 

[silicone boy]

Well considering what tackle looked like 50 years ago compared to what it does now, I could forsee a day when we have animatronic flies. That would be so cool.

 

[TopSlugger4]

I seriously hope not, I would hate for any of the authentic timeless edge of a fly to be taken out of flies

 

[rottal]

Plus, in usual form, id have to ditch all of my "old" flies and start filling my boxes with the new and improved version...which wouldnt fish any better than my old ones, but i gotta keep up with the times 

 

[TopSlugger4]

gosh you can say that again...just when I think I have a rod thats as good as it gets they come out with a new and improved one. This is it though, I'm drawing the line, I have what I need, now I just have to focus on building what really matters, and that's knowledge.