Fly Fishing Secrets at the River’s Edge

Like most fly fishers, I frequently find usable flies along the river’s edge. I spot most of them dangling from leaders wrapped around tree branches. A few are stuck in the tree branches themselves. Years of finding fly after fly along the river’s edge have provided me with a few fly fishing secrets.

Rather than turn these into a best-selling book and making a million bucks, I now share them with you in hopes these deep truths will improve your fly fishing experience:

1. Tree branches are the earth’s strongest magnetic force.

For years, I thought I was simply careless and not paying enough attention. “Rookie mistake,” I thought, after yet another errant back cast. But after seeing so many leaders wrapped around branches, it dawned on me that tree branches must have a Magnetic Force.

I am in need of a technology to de-magnetize my flies.

2. The Beadhead Prince Nymph is the fisher’s secret weapon.

Three out of every four flies I find at the river’s edge are Beadhead Prince Nymphs.

I can conclude only that this is the most superior pattern to use and perhaps the only one I will ever need. At first, I wondered if this was a reasonable conclusion. Why trust the fly selection of a slacker who loses his fly in a Ponderosa Pine?

But then I remembered the Magnetic Force. The fly fishers who lost these flies were likely skilled, knowledgeable veterans who simply underestimated the dark Magnetic Force of the branches behind them.

3. Buying or tying flies is a waste of time.

No more twenty dollar bills devoted to buying a dozen flies! No more money spent on dubbing material, hooks, beadheads, biots, peacock herl, head cement, the latest vise, and a host of other gadgets.

Now I’m saving so much cash that I’m planning on buying another high end fly rod.

The only downside is that I spend more time inspecting tree branches than I do fly fishing. Hopefully, that will change as I build up my supply. But I keep losing these flies that I find due to those darn magnetic tree branches. I may have to invest a metal detector to locate lost flies before I buy another fly rod.

Oh yes, there is another downside to my decision to stop buying flies and using only what I find at the river’s edge.

Three-fourths of the flies in my box are now beadhead prince nymphs. They work great, but at times I long for a caddis fly — particularly when fishing the Mother’s Day Caddis hatch on the Yellowstone River in Montana. I lost my last caddis fly pattern a couple years ago. Actually, I found one earlier this year, but I lost it a week later. It’s lodged somewhere on a magnetic branch.

I wish all those fly fishers using beadhead prince nymphs would switch to caddis flies for awhile.