I’ve mentioned on many occasions that I don’t adhere to the tenkara “one fly” approach simply because I would quickly get bored tying the same pattern over and over again. To me, fly tying is as much fun as fly fishing and the monotony would ruin one of my favorite aspects of the sport. So, since I started my tenkara career, I’ve been more of an “any fly” angler, tying on whatever strikes my fancy after lifting the lid on my fly box, but still tying multiple patterns. That’s allowed me to be unburdened by the “match-the-hatch” obsession while still affording me creative freedom at the vise. And so far, it’s worked well for me.
But an interesting idea came to me the other day that I don’t think I’ve seen discussed anywhere. What if instead of committing to a single signature pattern or adopting a more agnostic approach to fishing just a handful of “confidence patterns”, you committed to never tying the same fly twice? Literally. Every pattern you tie is 100% unique and never to be repeated. I call it the “Heraclitus-fly Approach” (named after the Greek philosopher who said, “you can’t step into the same river twice”).
It seems to me that that would be taking the “any fly” approach to its ultimate logical conclusion since you couldn’t rely on the benefit of prior experience with a particular pattern. It would be like hitting the reset button with every fly you tied.
I’m not sure I could ever adopt that philosophy, but it would be an interesting experiment–one that would truly put an angler’s skills to the ultimate test.
Well, to get even more philosophical about this. Every fly, no matter how close to a pattern, is different from every other fly. Something is always different.
I have been fishing Tekara for a little over three years and use all different kinds of flies.Alot of my own creations. I match the fly to time of year type of water and type of fish. I just caught my biggest Tenkara fish on a Teeny nymph a 14″ 2 1/2# Talapia. What a blast :).
I agree, I have been tying what I feel like. I do have some typical model I use but since the river I fish has such a variety of fish that changes depending on where I fish its kind of hard to choose just one. I’m still learning what works best for my region and like you I like to experiment. 🙂
This sounds like a parable of some kind. If it isn’t already a part of fly fishing lore it should be. The “Heraclitus Hustle” – because it would mean spending more time fly tying sometimes than fishing since some flies will get hit immediately over and over during a really productive fishing outing. You could blow through a whole box quickly if you don’t limit it to just never catching a fish on the same fly twice.
I’ve done a mini heraclitus on some of the high Uinta streams that are chock full of little guys that will hit anything. I have a box of reject flies that I’ve tied that didn’t catch fish on the Provo or other streams and I fish those on these sure things – catch a fish and then retire the fly with a purple heart knowing that it can pass on to wherever flies go after they’ve seen action and never get fished again.
When I first started fly fishing, I hated asking for help (mostly because it involved long lectures when I wanted a “quick fix”—no judgements!!!). BUT my philosophy at the time was “use it till you loose it.” I didn’t know how to tie a new tie on and would just fish until I needed a new tie. Sometimes I caught many fish and sometimes I caught none. I’d never switch ties…just cast the day away. SOMETIMES…(shhhh…) I’d cast KNOWING that I’d lost my tie and was just happy to be alone in the stream!!!!
That approach would certainly be interesting. I don’t think I could stick to it as a life-long fishing philosophy, the Elk-hair caddis is too successful for me not to use. However, perhaps a 1 week or 1 month challenge out of the year would be better suited to test it, or a 3 day fishing excursion!
I have been doing this for the most part already.. Yes I have a few favorites but I have enjoyed tying up mostly sakasa kebari in different materials. Great idea. I could embrace this idea.
Even in a catalog there are only so many flys. Anyone could make variations based on those patterns but as I read somewhere once, in the past 100 years there have only been a handful of truly new patterns. So while the idea is intriguing I’m just not sure if it is actually doable, unless you are willing to allow for the variations in materials or color as something different. I am actually attempting to do something like that, but again based on a basic set of patterns and ideas. I’m with you about the tying part. I love variety and enjoy tying things even if I’ll never use them, like spey or salmon flys. I consider tying an art form in and of its self with the benefit of being useful.
Hey Brian,
Yes, I would consider just substituting different materials or colors counting as a technically “different” pattern. I guess the point is that even if you found a color/material combination that worked well and you lost it, you wouldn’t tie it again. You have to tie a different combination.
That being said, yeah sounds like fun. I think a lot of folks who tye do that. Especially those of us who are cheap!
Interesting thought. It would remove the pressure to “learn” to tie a particular pattern!
I like to look at other flies for some ideas for creating my own fly patterns. I’ve never had a fly box that looks like your picture with line after line of identical flies. Tying only one pattern would be too boring.
I generally tie my flies in 3s. One to fish with, one to use if I lose the first one, and one to take back home to use as a model to tie clones should I decide it was a fish approved fly. Other wise that fly gets the razor and something new is tied on the hook.
I think this is more a personal thing. Personally i like to go for results during several different circumstances. And because I am a guide i can’t afford to take the philosofical appraoches. How do i fish? Pure tenkara, nymphing, dry fly and dry fly with a dropper. Within each technique i want to apply a max of 10 flies who change in size. So max ten different nymphs, max ten different dries and max ten differen tenkara flies. Each list of ten is tested each season by new patterns from my test box and i will see which fly can make the cut. But for example the dry fly box hasn’t even got more then 4 dry flies and the nymph box hasn’t got more then 6 nymphs. Do not get me wrong the flies do vary in size and with the nymphs the size changes with the weight