What helps you to decide? a favourite fly? the conditions? what other anglers are using? IOW how do you decide what to fish with, type of line, length of leader. I am looking for methods that always seem to work for you.

im not that experienced in the art of fly fishing yet but i usually go with the following

regardless of weather ill use the same fly i caught my last fish on.

i mostly fish still waters and go buy whats happening on the surface.

slight wind with ripples on the water usually means lures,damsels,

still water, buzzers and emergers

i usually keep on a floating line unless its ****ing it down or theres alot of wind havent really had the chance to use my intermediate

Conditions play a big part in my fly line decision, although I dont let them make the final decison.

Confidence in the flies your using, wether they were the last fly that caught you a fish, or you think " They look just right for today", which always ends up being the wrong one.....

Use a length of leader your happy to cast with, and it wont cause you casting problems.

Try not to be influenced completley by other anglers, although they will give you an idea of the 'method' that is working for that given moment, it doesnt always eqate that it will work for you.

In most cases I kill the first fish and spoon it. I know this sounds silly but the spooning can often tell me where I can improve the catch rate.

By the way Reaper, midge pupa often are at their most active when there is a fair chop on the water. They are small and the surface film in a flat calm is quite a barrier to them, and a good ripple makes emerging a lot easier.

Jeltz, I think (because it has been both told to me and proved to me) that biggest mistake people make is to assume that if they're not catching, then it must be the fly.

Fly fishing has built a whole legend around "matching the hatch" and thus created a myth that says trout are these ultra-fussy eaters and at a given time there is one and only one thing that they will eat.

By contrast, all the really good anglers that I've been privileged to fish with tend to share the view that the fly is one small part of the overall equation and not the most important one at that.

So it has been told to me over and over again that the number one factor is presentation. Depth, action, drift, leader, tippet, all these roll up into presentation, but the point is that you should change up these presentation-related factors before you change flies.

Assuming there's no obvious indication of what the fish are eating, here's how I go about it. First, I usually go with a fly that has worked before in a similar situation or one that is said to work in these conditions.

If I have no idea on either of these, I'll just use whatever the local or seasonal prospecting setup is for that species, for example summer trout in the western US is the Hopper/Dropper/Copper, fall steelhead on the UGLs is Stonefly/Spawn, and so on.

From there, I'll alter leader length, depth, drift tactics, and so on several times before I'll change flies. Not that I'm saying this always works, but I think it makes for an efficient way to work out the problem because IMO just about the worst thing you can do is to constantly switch patterns.

Grouse

Deciding which fly, it's a doddle for me, I only have two for still waters, a black & fritz green Montana, and a GRHE, one or the other always work for me...

If I am fishing a small stillwater a almost always start with two blobs on a slow sinking line, changing the retreave each cast. It almost always works, and gets me off to a start, as some people say you arn't fishing untill you catch your first fish.

I have to concur with the above.

When fishing well known waters I know what should be in the water column/film/hatching at the specific time of year. I will then fish the flies accordingly. These flies are the ones that I have confidance in, and to me for some unknown reason cofidance in your fly makes one helluva difference.
I have fished my buddies flies 'cos they assure me they are "killers", after an hour I tie my fly on and start catching

If you know the fly should be working and isn't then it's experimentation time, depth, drift, drag, skating the fly, whatever blows your hair back.

I have noticed that after catching 4 or 5 fish quickly I tend to start b*ggering around with experimentation, trying sometimes "absurd" things like drowning a dry with a heavy nymph in fast water. It's amazing wgat happens sometimes.

This is gold, some sound logic there Grouse, I feel 100% confident already.

Do you think 'where' the fish are is also important?

Which way the wind is blowing etc? I've read rainbows move in shoals and brownies are teritorial
if rainbows stay like all year or not, I don't know

The right fly, right retrive may not mean much on larger waters if ur nowhere near fish

My first time to Rutland was hard until we found them. Most people were struggling that day but we got lucky in one of the little bays.
12 fish later other boats came in until we picked them off

That was luck but if anyone can tell me how to do that correcly more often, I'm all years

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