Fly Fishing - Artificial Flies

Artificial Flies

In broadest terms, flies are categorized as either imitative or attractive. Imitative flies resemble natural food items. Attractive flies trigger instinctive strikes by employing a range of characteristics that do not necessarily mimic prey items. Flies can be fished floating on the surface (dry flies), partially submerged (emergers), or below the surface (nymphs, streamers, and wet flies). A dry fly is typically thought to represent an insect landing on, falling on (terrestrials), or emerging from, the water's surface as might a grasshopper, dragonfly, mayfly, ant, beetle, stonefly or caddisfly. Other surface flies include poppers and hair bugs that might resemble mice, frogs, etc. Sub-surface flies are designed to resemble a wide variety of prey including aquatic insect larvae, nymphs and pupae, baitfish, crayfish, leeches, worms, etc. Wet flies, known as streamers, are generally thought to imitate minnows, leeches or scuds.

Throughout history, artificial flies constructed of furs, feathers, and threads bound on a hook have been created by anglers to imitate fish prey. The first known mention of an artificial fly was in 200AD in Macedonia. Most early examples of artificial flies imitated common aquatic insects and baitfish. Today, artificial flies are tied with a wide variety of natural and synthetic materials (like mylar and rubber) to represent all manner of potential freshwater and saltwater fish prey to include aquatic and terrestrial insects, crustaceans, worms, baitfish, vegetation, flesh, spawn, small reptiles, amphibians, mammals and birds, etc.