Art Flick's "New Streamside Guide," dry flies and thoughts on matching the hatch

As a novice, the seemingly endless number of flies to choose from is absolutely overwhelming.  And forget about trying to identify a specific fly by sight.  It seems like every fly tier has his/her own version of each fly and sometimes two or three.  Given everything that's out there, where do you start?  How do you know which dry fly to use and when?

You can devote a lot of time to this and get extremely scientific, and as I gradually progress, I admit, this is the sort of thing I can see myself getting into, but when you're just starting off, you need to narrow the focus a bit.  As a wise TU member said, when you're just starting out, it's more important that you have confidence in the fly you're using than anything else.  Get out on the water, see what insects are around, and do your best to match the size and color.  You may not have the perfect fly, and there may be some fish your imitation doesn't fool, but it'll be enough to get you fishing and get you catching fish.  To give you an idea, my local TU Chapter president, Dave Plummer, has over 600 trout in his fishing journal from last year, and he swears up and down he uses a grand total of 6 different flies.  (I need to get a peek at his fly box!)

OK, so what flies do I need to get started?  If you live in the US Northeast, get yourself a copy of Art Flick's "New Streamside Guide".  Seriously, he's done all the work for you.  He spent 3 years on the Schoharie Creek in NY catching bugs, identifying them, and taking detailed notes on hatch times and habits of each and he's even gone and matched the types of bugs with the most common flies that imitate them.  To top it off, he narrows it down to around 10 dry flies to cover you all year.  He talks about what to use when and why and his book, with it's photos for easy identification, has been toted along in fishing vests since it was first published in 1969.

I'm lucky enough to have a copy from 1974 that was passed to me through a good friend from a gentleman by the name of Joe Knapp.  Between Art's research, and Joe's hand-written notes, I actually stand a decent chance of picking the right fly and matching the hatch.

The following is a little table I put together based on Joe's notes, but you can find similar hatch charts on the internet at places like The Fly Shack.

Mayfly Name:	Dry Fly Name:	Hook Size:	Time of year:
Iron fraudator	Quill Gordon	12 or 14	Last few days of April, 1st 3/4 of May
Ephemerella subvaria	Red Quill (male) or Hendrickson (female)	12 or 14	1st 3/4 of May
Stenonema vicarium	March Brown	10 or 12	All of May
Ephemerella attenuata	Blue-winged Olive	16 or 18	Last 3/4 of May into 1st half of June
Stenonema fuscum	Grey Fox	12	Late May & Early June
Stenonema ithaca or adensis	Light Cahill	12 or 14	Late May through Mid July
Paraleptophlebia adoptiva	Dun Variant	18 or 20	Late May to Late August
Ephemera guttulata	Grey Fox Variant or Green Drake	10 or 12	Last half of May & Early June
Potamanthus distinctus	Cream Variant	12	Last 1/2 of June through 1st 1/2 of July

After that, try to seek cooler water and fish terrestrials like ants and hoppers.