The process of designing an imitative fly pattern to represent an insect found in nature is an evolution. It starts out with a thought about simple things like color, size, shape, footprint on the water (if it's a dry pattern), and other visual characteristics. Good fly designs often take time, patience, stream research and revision to tune up a pattern that consistently gets things done. The past 4 or 5 years has been spent tying, testing and tuning a series of patterns to imitate our early stoneflies which has been a fun process. I'm getting this really close and maybe I'll roll that out one day. Who knows? The biggest influence on my tying journey has been Vince Marinaro's "In The Ring of the Rise" (Crown 1976). Chapter 5 of his book is called "A Game of Nods" in which Vince describes this process of designing a truly effective fly. A trout that rises to a fly but rejects it on closer inspection says that something is mostly right, but you still have work to do. It's one of the most interesting books in my collection, and the book that set me on a path years ago. The "research" continues. Till next time ....
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