How To Choose The Right Fly: A Guide’s Secrets To Catching More Trout

As a river guide for over 26 years, one of the questions I get asked more than almost any other is: how do you choose the right fly?

It sounds simple. And honestly, the most common answer you’ll hear — from books, videos, and the guy at the fly shop — is “match the hatch.” That means choosing a fly that imitates whatever insects are hatching or living in the water at the time.

It’s not bad advice. But here’s the thing: it’s not always right, and as a guide, I actually do it less often than not.

I’m going to tell you what I actually do on the water, why I do it, and how it puts my clients into far more fish than the average angler standing next to them. Some of this is guide-level stuff that you won’t read in a fly fishing book. So pay attention.

I use the same tactics for trout, steelhead, and salmon fishing, especially my rotating fly method.

Why Matching The Hatch Can Work Against You

Everyone tells you to match the hatch. And yes, there are absolutely times when it works. If there’s a heavy caddis hatch going on and you put on an elk hair caddis, you can do well.

But here’s what most anglers never think about: during a heavy hatch, there are hundreds — sometimes thousands — of naturals in the water. Real insects. Dead ones drifting. Emergers. Spinners. The trout have a buffet in front of them, and your fly looks exactly like every other item on that buffet.

Your fly blends right in. It gets ignored.

I’ve stood on the bank and watched anglers carefully match the hatch with a beautifully tied imitation and wonder why the fish aren’t taking. Mean while, I’ve watched my client catch fish after fish on something that looked nothing like what was hatching.

That’s not luck. That’s understanding how trout actually think.

---

The Guide Secret: Why Trout Eat Flies That Don’t Match Anything

Here’s the guide secret that most anglers never figure out on their own.

When there are so many naturals in the water that look identical to each other — and to your fly — your imitation gets lost in the crowd. The trout doesn’t notice it because there’s nothing to notice. It looks like everything else.

But put something in there that looks different — a fly that stands out — and suddenly the trout locks onto it. Not because it thinks it’s the food source it’s looking for, but because it doesn’t know what it is, and that curiosity is exactly what you’re fishing.

We call these flies attractor patterns, and in my experience, they will out-fish a close imitation more often than not during a heavy hatch.

---

Let The Trout Tell You What They Want

Before I even tie on a fly, I do something that a lot of anglers skip: I watch the water.

The trout will often tell you exactly what they want if you pay attention for a few minutes before you make your first cast.

I really don’t care what the hatch charts say, or what should be happening based on what some guy at the fly shop says. Conditions change, and that changes feeding behavior.

Here’s how I read it:

If I see trout rising — fish actively breaking the surface, sipping, slashing, or porpoising — I’m going to give them a dry fly. The fish are telling me they’re looking up, they’re feeding on or near the surface, and a well-presented dry fly is going to be my best shot. I’ll try to get a sense of what they’re rising to and pick something in that size and color range, then start my rotation from there.

If I don’t see any surface activity — no rises, no fish showing — I’m going to start with a nymph. The reality is that trout feed subsurface the vast majority of the time. If they’re not showing on top, they’re down in the water column picking off nymphs, and that’s where I need to be.

If the nymphs aren’t producing, then I’ll throw streamers at them and see what happens. A streamer is a completely different trigger — it’s a bigger meal, it creates movement, and it can provoke a reaction strike even from fish that have no interest in eating a small nymph. Sometimes an aggressive trout that ignored everything else will absolutely smash a streamer.

That’s my basic read-the-river sequence: dry fly if they’re rising, nymph if they’re not, streamer if the nymph isn’t moving them. It’s not complicated, but a lot of anglers never make it past step one because they show up with a plan and stick to it regardless of what the fish are telling them.

The fish always know better than your plan. Listen to them.

---

How I Choose My Starting Fly

My starting fly is usually something that’s reasonably close to what should naturally be in the water. Not a perfect imitation necessarily, but in the right size range and color family. It’s a reasonable first cast.

But here’s the thing — I don’t get married to that fly. If it’s not producing, I move on. And I move on faster than most anglers would.

I think the old advice of looking under the rocks to see what the fish are feeding on is dumb.

Here’s why. First, trout are not going down to the bottom and flipping over rocks to eat the bugs. And chances are, the insects under the rocks may not be the same insects that are drifting in the current that day.

So, who cares if you flip a rock over and see twenty stoneflies if those stoneflies don’t become active and hatch for another 30 days?

---

My Fly Rotation System (A Guide Trick)

What that means is this: I’ll tie on a fly, give it good, honest drifts for around five minutes, and if the fish aren’t responding, I change it. No hemming and hawing. No telling myself it’ll produce if I just keep at it. I change the fly.

Then I try the next one. Same process. Good drifts, five minutes, change if needed.

I keep rotating — different patterns, different colors, different sizes — based on my knowledge of what’s worked in the past on that river, or what my gut is telling me. And when I find a fly that starts producing, I leave it on and fish it hard.

That’s the whole system. It sounds simple, but the discipline of actually doing it — instead of fishing the same fly for two hours because you “believe in it” — is what separates guides from average anglers.

GUIDE TIP: I’ll be honest, I have 4 or 5 flies that catch 95% of the trout. These are flies I have determined are consistent producers, and I found them through years of rotating through flies and learning which ones produce the best. If you read many of my articles and pay attention, I reveal them to you.

---

What To Do When Nothing Is Working

However — if you can see fish feeding, if you’re watching risers or you can see trout actively moving in the current, and you’re still not catching, then one of two things is happening:

1. You’re not giving them what they want
2. Your presentation isn’t good enough

More times than not, it’s number two. And no fly on earth will fix bad presentation. I’ll talk about that in a minute because it’s important enough to deserve its own section.

---

Presentation Matters More Than The Fly

There’s a saying, “A bad fly fishing good, is better than a good fly fished bad.” It’s true.

I’ll be direct about this because I think it’s the single most important thing I can tell you: it doesn’t matter what fly you use if your presentation sucks. You will not catch fish.

And the really big problem for many guys is the catch 22, – They can’t catch fish because they can’t figure out what the right fly is.

And they’ll never be able to determine what the right fly is because they rarely fish well enough to determine what’s a good fly and what isn’t.

And trust me, I’ve stood beside thousands of anglers and clients, and they confirm the other saying, which is “10% of anglers catch 90% of fish”. And unfortunately, they aren’t the 10%.

Guys, I can hand you the best fly I own — the fly that’s caught me hundreds or thousands of fish — and if you drag it across the bottom, drift it at the wrong speed, have the wrong setup, or you’ve spooked the fish when you arrived, the fish won’t touch it. Presentation is everything.

If you want to get into the details of good nymphing presentation, check out my article on Euro Nymphing — it covers the best presentation fundamentals that apply to all nymphing methods.

---

Don’t Trust Yesterday’s Hot Fly

Here’s the truth: just because something worked yesterday doesn’t mean it’s the best fly today. And just because some guy caught a few fish on a certain pattern doesn’t mean another pattern wouldn’t have caught ten times as many — he’ll just never know it because he’s locked onto that one fly.

I don’t know how many times I’ve talked to guys on the water who thought they were having a great day on the water because they caught a bunch of fish, without realizing that they only caught 25% of what they could have.

Conditions change. The hatch changes. What the fish want changes. What’s supposed to work, isn’t always the best fly. Keep an open mind, and keep rotating.

---

My Guide Trick: Two Clients, Two Different Flies

When I’m guiding a group, I’ll often run what I think of as a live experiment. I’ll put one client on a pattern that looks pretty close to what should be naturally in the water. And I’ll put another client on something completely different — maybe a different color, different size, or a totally different type of insect pattern altogether.

Then I watch. Within a short period of time, one of those setups usually starts outperforming the other. And when it does, I know what the fish want that day, and I switch everyone over to the winner.

I do this when I fish with buddies too. If my buddy is using one fly, I’m almost always trying a different one, many times, both with work because we’re both fishing them well, but sometimes, one of use will find a fly they really want.

This is how guides think. We’re not just fishing — we’re constantly testing, constantly learning, constantly adjusting. If you start doing this on your own water, you’ll catch more fish. Guaranteed.

---

Think Outside The Box — My Favorite “Crazy” Flies

I still remember the time, back when I was fairly new to fly fishing, in my early twenties. I ran into a guy on a popular section of a brook trout river.

He was working his way down the river and was a good 10-minute walk down, and I was working my way up the river. When our paths crossed, we started talking. He said something that stuck with me today and taught me a valuable lesson. He said, “This is my first time on this river. I’ve heard such good things, but to be honest, it sucks. I haven’t caught anything.”

I said, “Really, I’ve caught a lot”. After a discussion on flies, he was using all the standard flies, ones that matched the hatches, and I was using a unusual flie that I usually catch steelhead. It was called a Michigan Wiggler, but mine was tied by me, and I used silver chenille as the body.

Yep, a bright silver flashy body, and they loved it.

So, I want to talk about the flies that shouldn’t work but absolutely do.

Over the years, some of my most productive flies have been the ones that look the least like anything real. A shiny, flashy nymph with a body made of silver tinsel. A bright pink San Juan Worm with a bead head. A big fat beetler pattern in the dead of summer during a thick caddis hatch.

The Rainbow Warrior is a perfect example, one of my favorites. It’s a shiny, beaded nymph that doesn’t look much like anything that ever lived in a river — but that damn fly has caught me a ton of trout. Sometimes ten times more fish than a careful natural imitation on the same stretch of water.

But my favorite story involves my orange indicator.

I spent years nymphing under an orange indicator, and I kept noticing that trout would come up and actually try to eat the indicator. Not the fly. The indicator. They were rising to my piece of orange foam like it was food.

So one day I thought: fine. If they want orange, I’ll give them orange. I started tying bright orange nymphs and bright orange dry flies. And you know what? That bright orange fly — something that looks nothing like any insect I’ve ever seen in a river — sometimes produces more fish than any carefully matched pattern in my box.

There’s something about bright orange on the water that trout can’t resist. You may not fully understand it, but I’ve learned two things because of these crazy flies: First, trout are not very smart, and second, they are very curious.

Guys, they don’t eat weird-looking flies like my indicator fly because it looks like something they had for dinner last night. They see it, the wonder, Hmmmm, is that food? So they open their mouths, put it in, and sample it.

They do this all the time with all kinds of stuff that drifts down the river. Yep, attractor patterns get eaten simply because trout are dumb and curious.

And for all you guys out there who’ve been thinking trout are smart because you can’t catch any, you are confusing smart with cautious. You see, a bad presentation, poor setup, or making noise are 90% of the reasons most guys can’t catch trout. as soon as you fix that, everything changes.

And bigger is often better. Most anglers fish flies that are too small. When I put on a big size-10 stonefly during a size-16 caddis hatch, other anglers look at me like I’ve lost my mind. But when my client is landing fish after fish, they change their tune.

---

The Frenchie: The Fly That Shouldn’t Work But Dominates

I have to tell you about the Frenchie, because it is the best example I have of everything I’ve been talking about.

The first time I saw a Frenchie, I genuinely thought someone was messing with me. It looks like a small cigar. It has a tail, a slim body, a bead, and a little collar of orange or hot spot dubbing. No legs. No realistic detail. It doesn’t look like any insect I’ve ever seen.

My reaction when someone told me to try it? Really? This fly is gonna catch fish?

This is what I mean about thinking outside the box. The Frenchie works regardless of what’s hatching. I can tie it on in the middle of a heavy hatch, run it through a pool, and catch fish that completely ignored my careful imitation.

If you only add one fly to your nymphing box after reading this article, make it a Frenchie. Get them in several sizes, with both orange and hot pink collars, with gold and silver beads. Fish it everywhere. You’ll thank me.

GUIDE TIP: There’s something I call a guide fly. Every time I say this, my clients look at me and say, “What’s a guide fly?” My simple explanation is, it’s a fly that’s fast and easy to tie, but works really well. Like a Frenchie, or a San Juan worm.

---

My Rotation System, Explained Step By Step

Step 1 — Start with something natural. Look at what’s in the water. What’s hatching? What size are the naturals? Start with a fly that’s in the right ballpark. Not necessarily a perfect imitation, but in the right size and color range. This is your baseline.

Step 2 — Give it a fair test. Don’t just make two casts and change. Give the fly five minutes of good, quality drifts through productive water. If the fish are there and feeding, that’s enough time to know if the fly is working.

Step 3 — If it’s not working, go more generic. If the close imitation isn’t producing, move to something simple and generic — a Frenchie, a Hare’s Ear, a Prince Nymph. These are flies that don’t really look like any one thing but catch fish everywhere. They’re in every serious guide’s box for a reason.

Step 4 — If that doesn’t work, go crazy. Now it’s time to get weird. Put on something bright, flashy, or oversized. A Rainbow Warrior. A big orange nymph. A pink San Juan Worm. A size-10 beetle during a tiny midge hatch. Whatever is as different from what you’ve been fishing as you can get.

Step 5 — Also rotate sizes. Don’t just rotate patterns — rotate sizes. If you think the fish should be on a size-14 caddis, try a size-10 stonefly. Try a size-18 scud. If they’re rising to size-16 caddis, put on a big beetle, or a grasshopper, or a Royal Coachman. Changing the size alone can make a massive difference.

Step 6 — When you find what works, fish it hard. The moment a fly starts producing, stop rotating. Leave it on and make every cast count. That’s your fly for the day — until it stops working, and then you start the process over.

---

A Note On Tying Materials and Tying Flies

What if you fly doesn’t have the same materials as mine?

I get questions all the time from clients who tie their own flies and want to know exactly what materials I use for certain patterns.

Here’s the honest answer: it doesn’t matter that much.

Look at the fly. Ask yourself what the material is doing — is it creating bulk? Translucency? Movement? Color? Then find something that does the same job.

If a mayfly pattern that I tie calls for Hare’s Ear dubbing on the body, you can substitute dry fly dubbing, fine wool, a quill, or even pheasant tail fibers wrapped around the hook shank. As long as the color, shape, and general size are in the right range, it’s going to fish the same way. The trout doesn’t know whether your body dubbing came from a hare’s ear mask or a bag of synthetic dubbing from the fly shop. It knows whether the fly looks right and drifts right.

Don’t overthink the materials. Think about the result.

---

FAQ: Choosing The Right Fly

Should I always match the hatch? Not always. Matching the hatch is a good starting point, but during heavy hatches, a fly that stands out will often catch more fish because it doesn’t get lost among the thousands of naturals in the water.

What is an attractor pattern? An attractor pattern is a fly that doesn’t imitate any specific insect but is designed to get the trout’s attention — through color, flash, or unusual size. Patterns like the Royal Coachman, Rainbow Warrior, and various hot-spot nymphs fall into this category.

What is the Frenchie fly? The Frenchie is a simple nymph pattern with a tungsten bead head, slim body, and a collar of brightly colored dubbing — usually orange or hot pink. Despite looking like almost nothing in nature, it is one of the most productive trout nymphs ever designed. It works in all conditions, regardless of what’s hatching.

How long should I fish a fly before changing it? I give a fly about five minutes of good, quality drifts through productive water. If the fish are there and it’s not working, I change. Don’t wait an hour hoping it’ll turn on — rotate.

What if I’m a beginner and I don’t know which fly to start with? Pull something from your box that looks reasonable, and fish it effectively. The biggest mistake beginners make isn’t choosing the wrong fly — it’s fishing any fly with bad presentation. Focus on your drift first, your pattern second.

Does size matter when choosing a fly? Absolutely. Don’t be afraid to go much bigger or much smaller than what you think the fish should want. Changing size alone — without changing the pattern — can completely change your results.

Why do trout eat flies that don’t look like anything real? Because trout are curious. When something unfamiliar drifts past, they want to know if it’s food. They’ll put it in their mouth to sample it — and if your hook is there, that’s when you catch them.

---

If you found this article useful, check out some of my other guides:

• Euro Nymphing: The Complete Guide
• Best Fly Lines For Trout
• Best Euro Nymphing Rods