Simple Flies Catch Fish

    "Keep It Simple, Stupid."

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   Words to live by, right?     Otherwise known as, "The The K.I.S.S. Principle," you have probably said these words yourself. Most likely, you have also heard it in any number of ways...

"Don't overthink it...", "Stick to the basics..." "Less Is More..."     The focus of this scatological directive is to keep you from going down a rabbit hole of complex solutions,... and causing more problems. 

    Just keep it simple, in other words.

    But, there is a warning handed down to us from no less than Albert Einstein, a complex man if ever there was one. He admonished us not to make things too simple...

"Everything should be made as simple 
as possible, but not simpler."

- Albert Einstein

      What can we take from all this? Well, a couple of things come to mind:

1. I'm not going to argue with Einstein on the matter 2. We should keep things as simple as needed, but not simpler.

    Which leads us to the question of the day: "Just how simple can you go in fly tying?” Do Simple Flies Exist?     How many times have you marveled at the many gorgeous, artsy fly creations we see? Their flights of fancy stimulate our sense of wonder and imagination.     And how about, the crazy, almost circus-like salmon, or bass flies of old?

    In still another group, we find spun deer hair "bugs and beasties." These over-the-top contrivances are becoming more and more popular.     In all of these, there is craftsmanship, artisan effort, and workmanlike devotion. And all of them try to outdo the others to see just how many different materials can be lashed to a hook. Simple is not what you would call these flies.     So if that is one extreme, what IS a, "simple fly?"

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Simple Is As Simple Does

    I asked this question once, somewhere around 2012, and in answer, I tied a single hackle on a hook. It was just some cement on the shaft, and a hackle palmered on.

    No kidding, that was it. Nothing else.     I wound on all the hackle the feather had to give, so we can say it was full and well hackled. But, hook and hackle were all I used - it couldn't be simpler.     And I'm pleased to say that the outcome was better than this humble arrangement might suggest. Not only did it catch many fish in the nearby pond, but the fish hit it with authority. I mean, they nailed it!

    That was about 10 years ago, but a similar fly caught fish just yesterday. So it wasn't a fluke, or some trick of my memory.     Bottom line: Simple flies catch fish.

Simple Is Heartless

    Okay, there it is - "Simple flies catch fish." I am happy at this revelation, of course, and I could just leave it there. But I am also a little disappointed.

    Why disappointed? Because I have books - lots and lots of FLY TYING books.     My shelves groan under their weight; some of you reading this have probably written a few of them! Each time I get another one, my wife clicks her tongue as only wives can, then exclaims, "ANOTHER fly tying book?!"     And those books..., oh, those glorious books... why, they are just FULL of fly patterns. I mean CHOCK FULL!

    More than that, each pattern is guaranteed to make the fish sit up and take notice. If you were to advertise Superman and his powers, you could hardly compete with the puffery heaped upon every fly pattern we encounter. Reading their narratives, it's hard to imagine you have lived this long without them.          Materials for the things range from the commonplace to the exotic, each fly has its own exacting type of hook, and the patterns are coupled with clever, sometimes arcane techniques for crafting them.

    Besides all that, I have invested an imposing sum of money in these written works; I cannot ignore them for simple, mundane flies, can I?     Of course not; I am committed. I am obligated to tie everything but simple flies, and to like it, by God.

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    Let us leave the world of books for a moment, and return to my simple fly from 2012.     There I stand at the waters edge, line in hand.     On my leader is that single, half-chewed feather on a 2 cent     hook... and I release yet another fish caught on that oh-so simple thing.     That's when it hit me like a brick - "You mean, I only need something THAT simple to catch fish!?"     The nearby egret hears me muttering to myself, and squawks his affirmation... "Ack! Yess!"

    That revelation put a permanent wrinkle in the fabric of my fly tying. The egret only made it worse.     

We Know More Than Fish     Certainly, I love all my books; because of them, I KNOW stuff.     But, ... well, ... fish don't read books.     They don't to know they are supposed to go crazy for all the things the books tell us to tie onto hooks.

    This leaves me with an inescapable conclusion:     They go for simple flies because there isn't anything lurid about them. They like them precisely because they are simple.

A Few Flies from History

    To further look into this idea of simple, join me as we turn back the hands of time... back....back...

Step Into The Wayback Machine

    Going to the olden days, and I mean centuries ago, we find the old flies were also quite simple. The people back then didn't have the cornucopia of natural and synthetic materials we enjoy.

    They had a handful of feather types, wool or other animal hair, and some relatively rough thread. With these common ingredients, they crudely whipped their flies onto rustic hooks - and they caught fish.

    For example, there is the most well-known of the old flies, the Macedonian fly Claudius Aelianus famously described in his "Varia Historia."     This was a sort of an atlas if you like, and the following was written around the year 200 A.D.

"....When a fish observes a fly on the surface, it swims quietly up and gulps it down.

Now, although the fishermen know of this, they do not use these (live) flies as bait; for if a man's hand touch them, they lose their natural colour, their wings wither, and they become unfit food for the fish.

But the fishermen get the better of the fish, nonetheless, by their fishermen's craft.

They fasten red wool 'round a hook, and fix onto the wool two feathers which grow under a cock's wattles, and which in colour are like wax*.

Their rod is six feet long, and their horse hair line is the same length.
They throw their snare, and the fish, attracted and maddened by the colour, comes straight at it." 

    This is from 1800 years ago. Red wool on a hook, with a couple of medium ginger feathers from a roosters' neck. There we are again - SIMPLE catches fish!

Fish Are Not Pushovers     At this point we must address the idea that the fish of old were stupid enough to fall for these simple flies. Today, we complain loudly about "educated fish" - they are wise, crafty, intelligent, and so on.... and that's our excuse for not always catching them.     We are certain that in the "old days," fish were clueless push-overs.     On the contrary, the waters of these early times were not isolated in the back woods. Those waters of which earlier men wrote were well-traveled, and overrun by meat-hungry people who wanted to eat fish.     Any finny denizen of these waters was locked in a daily struggle to survive against both its natural predators, and a horde of two-legged ones, as well.     History is full of writings, pictographs, and lore that clearly show mankind was keenly after anything that lived in the waters of the planet. They were unrelenting, too; wherever they could reach, they were trying to take fish.

Alta Cave Art, Norway

Egyptian Fly Fishing?

Greek Rod and Line Angling

Medieval Fishing with Nets

Medieval Fishing with Rod

    Going by these pictures, its pretty clear that no fish has ever been safe from hungry humanity, wherever they may swim. And where flies of some sort WERE being used, they were, by default, simple flies doing the job needed.     So the idea that simple flies only take stupid fish... well, it doesn't hold water. Modern Day Simplicity     Remember all those books of mine? Among them is one in particular that fits into the theme of simple. That book is by C. Boyd Pfeiffer, and looks like this...

 

    Catch that title: "Simple Flies...Flies you can tie with three materials or less." Even better, the materials in the book are also simple: fur, poly fibers, a few feathers, maybe some craft foam.

    Mr. Pfeiffer authored 24 books, countless articles, and is an Outdoor Writers Guild Hall of Fame member.... he knows that simple works.     How about Bob Clouser, and his famous, "Deep Minnow," more popularly called, "The Clouser Minnow."     Bob has a number of patterns to his credit. But, his most famous one - The Clouser Minnow - is just a few tufts of bucktail and a pair of dumbbell eyes on a hook. He's another guy who knows simple

    And lets not omit the "Wooly Bugger" Even the most rank beginner to the fly fishing arts knows that one...every discussion of Top 10 Flies includes it. It's often suggested that more fish have been caught on the Wooly Bugger than any other fly. But it is nothing more than marabou, chenille and a frilly hackle fiber wound up the hook shank. Super simple, people.     One of my favorite simple flies certainly qualifies here. Sometimes called a "flymph" by the trouting crowd, or by the generic, "soft hackle nymph," I started calling them, "3 Way Flies" before I knew these other names.     I tie them in every size from 12-4, and they have caught more fish than I care to count.

    The 3 Way Fly is nothing more than... 1. A tail of some kind, plus... 2. A body of some kind, plus... 3. A hackled shoulder collar of some kind     There are no exacting instructions, no complicated techniques, no demanding materials. Just 3 basic elements to create a simple, fish catching, 3 Way Fly! Can It Be Simpler?     So how simple can a fly be, allowing for the hook and thread? One material? Two items of material? Three materials?     Well... yes.     By now you'll probably agree this is the bottom end of simplicity - somewhere between 1 and 3 materials. Of course you can pile on as much as you can cram on a hook, and we fly tyers will drool over it. It's kinda what we do.     But do we need to, in order to catch fish?     It would seem the answer is no.     And once I figured that out, a positive emerged: I don't buy near as many fly tying books as I used to! Thanks for reading, and "Tight Lines!"

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I hope you liked this article, and learned something from it. 

I go for a job well done..., since I have no idea how to make money at it. 😁 If you think I did a good job, please like, comment, and share. 

David Hutton

Palmetto Fly N Fish 

If you have questions, contact me at: dahutist@gmail.com

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All rights reserved, David  Hutton© 2022/2023 

References 1. Http://seventeenthcenturyflies.blogspot.com/2010/03/flies-of-charles-cotton-1676.html

2. https://rivertoprambles.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/variations-on-a-first-trout-fly-pattern/ 3. "Simple Flies... Flies You Can Tie With 3 Materials Or Less", C. Boyd Pfeiffer
4. "Peabody's Improbable History," Jay Ward Productions
5. https://midcurrent.com/history/aelian-lives/