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The Importance of Fly Selection

What it Means and Why It Matters to Your Fly Fishing Success

Part 1 of 5 of Fly Selection Mastery Series
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Choosing the Right Fly the Fastest

Fly Selection is one of the three pillars of fly fishing success and catching more fish more consistently every time you’re out on the river. Fly selection is nothing more than learning how to make the right fly for any given day, time or location on a river as fast as possible. Choosing the right fly on the river is always a guess and don’t let anyone tell you any different. Anglers who are good at fly selection can just guess faster than you and with better accuracy.

In this article, we are going to share with you why fly selection matters so you can keep the proper motivation to see this through to the end. If you can learn your bugs, come prepared before you get on the water and once on the water, observe and choose the right fly, you will catch more fish more consistently than ever before.

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If you haven’t signed up for our full series you can sign up for it here to get all 5 guides in our fly selection mastery series. 


Also check our our full online entomology course for $199 that teaches you everything you need to know about the bugs that trout eat.  This series is a strategy guide about fly selection and knowing your bugs is one of the most important parts of fly selection.

Why Fly Selection Matters

Learn Why Mastering Fly Selection Will Catch You More Fish

Learning fly selection will help you catch more fish more consistently. That might sound like a pipe dream, but if you find yourself relying on fishing report fly choices, or whatever worked well last time you fished, you’re missing out on your true potential to consistently catch more fish on the river. Here’s three reasons you should commit to improving your fly selection:

Fish Will Eat the Right Fly Twice as Often

Anyone with a semi-decent cast on a trout-filled river can throw a fly on most days and catch a few trout. Trout are opportunistic and will eat when the right opportunity comes down the river, however, trout are also equally selective and will always focus the majority of those efforts around maximizing food intake and minimizing their effort to get it. If you can figure out what they are selecting for the day as their primary food source, you will reliably catch twice as many fish as you would with a different fly.

I’ve had experiences where the fishing was good and I was catching one or two fish per section of water that looked like it should hold a fish. However, I felt like I was missing something because I could see more fish in the hole feeding. After applying my fly selection skills, I was able to identify the pattern they were eating more consistently and after changing the fly to match the food of choice, I doubled my catch rate per hole. This is a common experience for me now and it can be common for you too.

You’ll Gain a Great Appreciation for The Experience

Until you experience selecting the right fly and understanding the reasons why that fly is working, you just won’t get the complete satisfaction out of fly fishing. Feeling connected to the experience of catching a trout is what keeps us casting time and time again for hours on end. We want to throw a fly, fool the trout and experience the satisfaction of outwitting something so wild. Without the knowledge of why the fish ate that fly, it can often feel like you just got lucky.

When you know that BWO are hatching because it’s early spring and the trout are rising to these small, strong swimming mayflies, and you can cast and connect with a trout to your net, everything changes. You didn’t luckily select the right fly, you learned your insect knowledge which helped you come prepared to the river with the right flies which helped you observe and select the right on the water based on what you saw on the water and you were able to land a fish with that fly that you selected and prepared to do sometimes weeks in advance. The satisfaction of that experience will greatly outweigh the “got lucky” experience people without fly selection skills experience.

When Fishing Gets Tough, Great Fly Selection Makes the Difference

When the going gets tough, the tough choose the right flies with precision. Being in the right location and creating a solid presentation is equally important as well, however, I’ve had my days of greatest improvement from changing my flies from wrong to right. Fly fishing isn’t always easy and trout don’t always cooperate with our plans, but they are almost always eating because they are always burning energy and need to eat to survive. Figuring out that pattern is often all it takes to turn a 2 fish day into 20.

3 Steps to Mastering Fly Selection

So now you hopefully understand and are properly motivated to learn how to become a master at selecting the right fly, so what is next?  If you haven’t signed up for our five part series you can do so below.  If you already have, you can scroll to the bottom and read the next article or we’ll send it via email as well.  The email goes out every week.

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5 – Part Fly Selection Mastery Series

If you haven’t signed up for our full series you can sign up for it here to get all 5 guides in our fly selection mastery series.



If You’re Already on Our Fly Selection Series Emails….

Then you’re on the right track for improving your fly selection skills. Go ahead and read the next article below. (We’ll email it to you as well or you can read it now if you have time)

Read 3 Steps to Mastering Fly Selection

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