The Single Fly

Jim Teeny’s Nymph.

With variations in color and size, it is his only fly for 40 years.

A lot depends on what kind of water you fish. This is typical for me, with maybe a bit less gradient and more riffles along the sides –

95% of the time I’m throwing a Zebra Midge –

Black, Brown, or Camel. #14, #16, or #18. It’s usually windy here, so beadheads make it easy. [and always barbless]

I’m into well educated browns and rainbows. Rain or shine. Crystal clear or mocha brown. Summer and winter. All day long. The Arkansas, South Platte, Green, the Colorado at Lee’s Ferry, the Poudre.

Not “One Fly”, but pretty close to “One Pattern”.

Love the Jim Teeny piece, thanks Greg. I'll be tying some of those tomorrow!

That's pretty much the same beadhead I always go to. Used to tie it with the silver ribbing but ended up just going with bare thread. I agree with how easy they are to fish, especially with wind. It's my favorite for High Sierra lakes.

I've tried the "regulars" – Hare's Ear, PT, Prince, etc., but at the end of a day 90% of my fish were tricked by a Zebra Midge.

I've tied a bunch of the Teeny Nymphs, so we'll see what the fish like. If it lives up to the hype I'll be a Two Pattern guy.

I know it's an argument provoking subject, but I tend to believe flies are often far more elaborate and complicated than they need to be. For example, I was a serious devotee of the gold ribbed hare's ear, but soon found it seemed to make absolutely no difference to the fish I was after if I tied it without gold ribbing, a tail, or a wing case…leaving you with nothing but dubbing and a little weight on a hook.

I suppose the only thing that would get in the way of a sparse flybox is the artist in me. While I think the Adams/Parachute Adams is far more complicated than it needs to be to catch fish (at least in my experience), it's certainly a small work of art.

But I have to say, from a tying perspective, I'm not too interested in shelling out cash for exotic materials anymore.

Typically, I will fish with whatever I happen to have on the line. Usually small, #16 some sort of dry fly. If I need a wet, I mash it down in my finger tips with a bit of saliva. I cannot say I tie a lot of fancy flies for myself. A simple nymph, like a pheasant tail without weight, is ultra simple to tie and very effective.

Size, color, pattern(silhouette) seems to be the three main concerns of the fish. They very in importance by region, species you are fishing for. Example: Brookies like Yellow/red and size 12 flies, Rainbows like smaller duller colors, Browns like very natural looking flies. These are generalities only, which is not to say you cannot catch a brown on a Coachman. But a simpler Blue Dun works better on browns.

If you stick to one fly, you will find you miss a lot of fish.

It's all relative. I still employ a lot of western tactics with my Tenkara. The streams of NC are a bit more difficult than mountain lakes in Montana, but as a general rule I throw a dry fly unless I feel a need to run a nymph through a plunge pool. On the delayed harvest stocker streams I always run something that I sink down san juan, egg, etc…

If you are "mostly fishing mountain streams" then yeah, those fish are going to hit anything that remotely looks like a fly. This is both because that is not a food-rich enviroment, and because small fish can be over-zealous little buggers. If you use as your "one fly" something like a soft hackle or trad tenkara fly, then you will also have a lot of ways to potentially fish it depending on your skill – dry, just below the film, nympy, streamerish (ok those last two are probably not real words).

However some of us have a lot of fun changing flies, even with tenkara, and if you go to more selective places you are going to have to think more and work more. Good luck with that. On hot creek I hope you like quietly meditating on the futility of mortal pursuits while fishing your one fly – or any fly. But there may always be one fish in the crowd that is not picky, and a midge nymph is going to look approximately like food almost anywhere.

Something to think about – everything can be a "spiritual trap" if taken to extreme, including (I'd like to say especially) extreme hard-core minimalism – not that there are people like that on this site. Ahem.. LOL

Craig,

Cool idea, as long as you're okay with catching less fish, and even getting skunked some days. Different patterns behave differently in the water, and some fisheries just demand skill with various presentations/patterns.

Here is a fish I caught on Hot Creek that must have watched my nymph drift by for almost an hour. I changed my fly and immediately caught this fish and then 3 or 4 more in rapid succession. A pattern that drifted in the "surface film" did the trick.

And on the Owens, we tried various nymphs and dries for hours, but it wasn't until we started using the zebra midge that we started hooking up on these fish, almost to the point that it was too easy. I think the zebra midge sinks to the bottom very fast but maintains a much smaller profile than any other patterns we were using.

I can think of many more examples from my own experience, especially when you factor in things like water color, rapids versus slow clear water, and prolific hatch activity.

Still, I think there is something to what you're saying. We overthink our fly selection way more than necessary. My personal take on this is that the way many people fish, they could really simplify their selection of flies big time and instead focus on refining their presentation skills. Simply being able to consistently present the fly drag-free and ahead of the line (this aint easy) would up most people's games much more than which pattern they choose.

Dude, I'll be up in the Eastern Sierra on two separate week long vacations this year. Come up and stalk some big fish with me. Oh, and bring some extra long leaders and your full on ninja skills.

nm.

pointless.

it depends on the fishery.
in high elev streams full of opportunistic feeders whose growing season is barely half the year, such mental masturbation is doable. on the JMT i often fed the whole party with an elk hair caddis.
in glassy lakes full of large wild fish who see alot of patterns, it's nuts.
a friend of mine lived on one of CA's blue ribbon trout streams for 3 seasons, and used to snorkel it to observe fish. what he learned from it was to change flies constantly…far more than he ever had prior. i am lazy in this respect, and would do well to change flies more diligently…
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Overall the Muddler Minnow does the best for me under different water conditions and species sought. I fish small sizes dry.

Best overall dry fly, the Adams.

I'm curious about how fishing tenkara vs. Western has an influence on the responses here.

"Best overall dry fly, the Adams."

+1

https://www.tenkarausa.com/tenkara-one-fly-keeps-it-simple/

One thing that is perhaps being overlooked is that with tenkara, emphasis seems to be on presentation and the ability to use a single fly in multiple ways, thus negating the need for a complex box. It's interesting to me to hear so many tenkara anglers talk about not worrying about matching hatches when that's paramount in the Western perspective. And while one may argue that tenkara anglers get away with limited fly selection because of where they are fishing, I keep reading article after article about the same anglers being successful all over the world with this mentality.

There's obviously no right or wrong here, you do what works for you.

But as I'm transitioning from the world of Western fly fishing into tenkara, I can't help but notice the lack of emphasis on fly selection that is so central to Western fishing.

Back when they were breeding and stocking lakes and streams here in Humboldt and surrounding areas a fly that looked like a food pellet was very successful with the guys that I've talked with. Watched a novice get a fish with every third cast last summer at Caribou. Terrible presentation, but hungry fish.

Craig, though I have no idea how much you may have already done this, I think if you read extensively in the "western" fly fishing literature you will find a ton about minimalism and using just a few flies, and not caring at all about the precise details of a fly, all mixed in with the other stuff you mentioned. There is *nothing* fundamental in tenkara that has not been exhaustively presented, discussed, and avidly debated before in the long history of "western" fly fishing. There are also whole huge and hugely popular types of western fly fishing that have absolutely nothing to do with matching the hatch. That is not "paramount" in western fly fishing (outside of some of its tweedier and more ossified corners) by any means, and where it appears it is usually more of an end in and of itself rather than an unbreakable rule. In that sense, at least, matching the hatch and tenkara have a lot in common.

I think this so-called dichotomy between tenkara and western fly fishing is a false one. Tenkara places a nice pared-down emphasis on minimalism, probably one that is much easier for some people to see at the surface, but this theme has been discovered, rediscovered and written about many times in western fly fishing as well. I think if you placed the emphasis on how MUCH can be done with technique alone (a theme that has come up in western fly fishing over and over again) instead of implying that all (or most) of it can be done with technique alone then you would have the right of it. But the latter is just not true. Yes you can go all over and catch SOME fish with your Sakasa kebari or Jim Teeny nymph (like Brian, mine would be the EHC), but this is not the same thing a being able to catch ANYTHING available to you at any particular time that way, even in smallish streams and mountain lakes. Probably you weren't implying that at all.

On the other hand in my "Kung Fu Disciple" fantasy, perhaps it would be "morally" better to achieve mastery of the core lessons of tenkara before the sensei allows you to either pick up a western rod, or look at an Orvis catalog. Wax on, wax off.

Unfortunately, while I love tenkara, and it is perhaps the finest way to introduce most of the essentials of fly fishing to people without the unwanted distraction of gear and *stuff*, it is simply useless when going after about %80 of the fish I'm personally interested in targeting out here in the wild west.

But in the higher parts of the sierra, yeah, I'd put my tenkara rod and a single dry and single nymph fly up against any western style head to head.

So it doesn't work for you for 80% of what you're doing; that's perfectly fine.

Personally, I'm finding it more appropriate to how I like to fish. I'm not doing this for a living or solely to put food on the table so I'm not too concerned about missing opportunities; if it proves to be the case that I'm trading a certain degree of functionality for a certain style and set of aesthetics, so be it. It's the same reason I'm interested in bowhunting, even it it does leave me staring uselessly at a buck that would be well within rifle range.

Marko –
"… it is simply useless when going after about %80 of the fish I'm personally interested in …"

This intrigues me. If you are talking about the evening hatch on long narrow quite pools, I understand.

What water are you fishing, and what fish therein?

Thanks.

My drug of choice would be the screaming run of a winter steelhead, and I'm not concerned about missing many opportunities to catch 8-10" trout in the process – or honestly the opportunity to catch much of anything most of the time. :-)

But I admit that is, for a lot of reasons, a pretty masochistic choice of drugs.

… and not what a “typical” tenkara angler would pursue.

Nonetheless …

Agreed. Except for technically both being fly fishing not a lot in common technically. In fact most of the flies I use when doing that kind of fishing are bigger than the fish in Craig's other thread. But there is something really beautiful about anadromous fish, their size and strength, and especially their life story.

Tenkara is a nice change of pace however, since it doesn't require an expedition, or (usually) freezing one's ass off, or sacrificial and usually futile efforts.

As for that video – Awe, look at that cute little guy.

Agreed on the anadromous fish. I've done my share of chasing steelhead and salmon up north but don't have the time/money to make the drive from Southern CA much anymore.

You're absolutely right….I've got salmon streamers bigger than that little trout I posted! In fact, I think it takes the record for the smallest trout I've ever landed.

.. drift

This video is only remotely related to tenkara.

It is an expedition.
He does freeze his ass off.

But it is fixed line and a big fish.
Skip to 12 minutes. Sorry about the commercials.