Fly Tying - The Fly Pattern

The Fly Pattern

The fly pattern is the recipe for any particularly named fly. In older literature, especially prior to the 20th century, fly patterns were referred to as dressings. The pattern specifies the size range and type of hook to be used, the materials to use including type, color and size, and in some cases specific tying instructions to achieve a particular effect or configuration. Fly patterns allow tyers to consistently reproduce any given pattern over time. A Light Cahill dry fly produced by one tyer will look remarkably similar to the same fly produced by a completely different tyer if the pattern is followed with reasonable accuracy with comparable materials. Patterns may also lay out alternatives for different materials and variations of the fly.

Fly patterns are usually found in fly fishing and fly tying literature and periodicals to include on-line sources. Although fly patterns do provide some consistency, different writers may publish patterns that contain small to moderate differences across pattern descriptions for the same fly. In many cases, the greatest differences are in tying technique instead of form, color and materials. Fly patterns may or may not have an image or drawing of the finished fly to guide the fly tyer. Historically, fly patterns have been included in texts that discuss fishing a particular genre of fly, fly fishing technique or fly fishing for specific species or genre of gamefish. There are however, texts that are pure fly pattern and tying references with little or no instruction on how to fish them.