Friday Fly Day - The Fly

Summer is coming and that means the flies are too. Normally this would be a matter of great annoyance to the average person but the sick and twisted individuals that are fly fisherman take great delight in knowing that the first of the terrestrials are here.

Simon Wilkinson recently sent us this epic underwater shot of a great brown that had chomped down on a Manic Improved Para Humpy blowfly imitation which got us thinking a bit about how great these flies really are.

Humpies, Para Humpies or the rubber legged Improved Para Humpies...take your pick, they will all do the job and at least one style (in a couple of sizes) deserves a permanent place in your fly box.

We love them as a versatile terrestrial because they are easy to cast, buoyant enough to suspend small bead heads under and they can double as a beetle fly if you're caught out when a sea of brown beetles float past you early season. A large version could also be mistaken for a small cicada that has lost its way into the bubble line just waiting to be smashed by a hungry trout.

And for a bit of fun this season why not try one of the True Housefly versions? While it’s been proven that the trout generally don’t pay much attention to overall detail and prefer to focus on two or three aspects of a fly these things really do represent the real deal and either way are going to look pretty cool in your fly box.