Bonefish selection
To tie or to buy your flies, that is the question? If you tie your own flies already you will fully understand this dilemma each time you choose to expand your fly fishing adventures in search of a new species. More often than not this adventure will require a new fly box filled with a multitude of patterns you may have never seen or tied before. Your next trip to the local fly shop will therefore require an extensive fly tying material and hook list in hand, or a list of the flies you will need to buy.
I started tying my own flies some years ago now, and that was me hooked! For me, fly fishing with flies you have tied yourself adds another dimension to the whole experience, with that extra satisfaction and sense of achievement of catching a fish on one of your own flies. Don't get me wrong, not all of my interpretations of well known patterns and attempts of fly invention (I use that term loosely with so many patterns out there) have been successful, far from it! But it's great when they are!
Above, a beautiful Bonefish which succumbed to my interpretation of a Peterson's Spawning Shrimp, a pattern which proved successful on both of my trips to Crooked Island, Bahamas.
Yellow Wulff (variant)
Balloon Caddis (variant)
Above, my versions of the Yellow Wulff and the Balloon Caddis, both of which have proved very successful for wild brownies on the small streams over here in Switzerland.
I made my decision some years ago shortly after purchasing my first fly tying equipment...I have not bought a fly since that day.
