Ok, I may be a bit of an old fart traditionalist when it comes to trout fly fishing and this post genuinely isn't a poke at anyone so don't get your hackles up as the only trolling I do is when I go fishing.

However, when I see some of the huge lures that are being used these days and the techniques used being passed off as trout fly fishing, I just thnk the angler might as well set up a spinning rod and fixed spool reel and fish them that way as it would be far easier and probably safer for all concerned!
Maybe my views are too conservative and purist but I've always been used to river fishing where, by and large the artificial fly being used has had to be generally representitive of the hatches of flies that were landing on or emerging from the water at that time. If you didn't accurately match the natural flies with your artificial flies, you were very unlikely to be successful on the day!
That for me was always the attraction and challenge of fly fishing for trout. If I really wanted to catch trout with any form of other lures like a spoons or quill-minnows etc, I'd simply have used spinning rod etc.

Of course, even when I was young, there were anglers using 'fly spoons' etc so it's nothing new and let's be fair, salmon flies very often don't represent real flies just as probably half of the trout patterns around don't actually represent real flies but I just feel that using huge lures which for all intents and purposes look amazingly like the traditional spinning lures is taking trout fly fishing just a cast too far and I wonder if other anglers feel the same about them or am I the odd one out in my thinking?

Tony

I think the answer is yes. Lures are a recognized part of fly fishing for trout and salmon and have been for decades. There are purists who frown on lures but then dry fly fishermen used to frown on wet flies and nymphs.

sometimes not pretty tony but if they catch fish and are the only things working at that particular time then like it or not people will use them.

after all we do want to catch fish

terry

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"It is only the inexperienced and thoughtless who find pleasure in killing fish for the mere sake of killing them. No sportsman does this." - W.C. Prime, 1888

Started off a very dull post but this has made my day ... priceless!

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[I]"I still don't know why I fish or why other men fish, except that we like it and it makes us think and feel."[/I] Roderick L Haig-Brown

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When the trout are hard on fry then a 3 inch fry pattern is for all intents and purposes matching the hatch. I got no problems with them and to be honest it can be exciting as any other form of our sport watch a bow wave traveling at speed after your fly

should we stop calling it fly fishing then???? i mean if im imitating nymphs , fry or anything else that will catch fish, then im only fly fishing approximately 20% of the time...

maybe we should call it imitation fishing... anyone else think of a better name?

Stevie

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if it was that easy they'd call it catching!

Tony, if you want to catch trout by the purist method, dry fly matching the hatch, then that's fantastic. I couldn't agree more that it feels such a nice, and for some hard to describe reason, clean method of fishing.

But there are days, or therein part of days, when this will simply just not work, no matter what you throw at them, where the more effort you make the more you put the fish down. Some days they are just easily put down for no apparent reason.

If you choose to sit, have lunch, and wait things out for a change then that's all too well, and there are days when I have chosen to do the same, rather than change my tactics.

Looking at the other methods and fishing lures on the fly rod in particular, there are times when a good fish will simply not waste energy moving to a small mouthful, where instinct tells the fish it will use up more energy than the small morsel will replenish, and being a predatory fish, in these situations it makes more sense to move to a larger source of food, even better if it's drawn across the fish's face deep where he lies.

If you haven't fished lures from the fly rod, late at night, when the larger trout come out to play, then you really might be missing out on an experience?

Perhaps you are from an older generation? Perhaps fishing dawn and dusk is not suitable to you any more?

Or perhaps you just simply like to look down your nose at others, perhaps recognising today's modern lure anglers as riff raff?

---------- Post added at 06:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:04 PM ----------

Yes, let's call it FISHING.

and your nugget of wisdom is...?

You can call it whatever your comfortable with.Me,I'll still call it flyfishing.

Jim

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The Fishermans Friend is the Flirty Fly,Fickle Food for Fleeting Fish.

I still frown upon them - in fact I find only self-flagellation will still my conscience - I used to wear one of those spiky thingies around the thigh but they kept on puncturing my waders.

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"Please God, don't let me die at the hands of the Swiss". English, J, Sir