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Nymph
Subsurface patterns for immature aquatic insects and dependable searching rigs.
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Dry
Surface patterns for adult mayflies, caddis, midges, and attractor presentations.
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Streamer
Larger moving patterns for baitfish, leeches, sculpins, and predatory responses.
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Emerger
Transitional patterns designed for insects moving toward or through the surface.
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Terrestrial
Ant, beetle, hopper, and other land-insect patterns for warm-season fishing.
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Other
Specialized families that do not fit cleanly into the main trout-fly categories.
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Wet Fly
Traditional and modern soft-hackle patterns fished below the surface.
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Egg Flesh
Egg and flesh families used where spawning or carcass food is seasonally relevant.
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Patterns built for coastal baitfish, crustaceans, and flats or inshore species.
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145 fly guides
Nymph · #16–22 in the Orvis recipe
Zebra Midge
A sparse, fast-sinking midge-pupa pattern built from a slim thread body, open wire rib, and small bead.Nymph · #12–20
Pheasant Tail Nymph
A compact mayfly-nymph pattern whose pheasant-tail fibers and copper rib create a slim, segmented profile.Dry · #10–18
Elk Hair Caddis
A buoyant adult-caddis dry fly with a tented hair wing and palmered hackle that holds up in broken water.Dry · #12–22
Parachute Adams
A highly visible mayfly-style dry with an upright post and hackle wrapped horizontally around that post.Streamer · #6–12
Woolly Bugger
A mobile marabou-and-hackle streamer that can suggest several large food forms without being one exact imitation.Emerger · Match the natural
RS2
Rim Chung's sparse beadless emerger or floating nymph, built with two split tails, a tightly dubbed tapered body, a compact thorax, and a clipped saddle-hackle-web wing.Nymph · Orvis: #12–20
Gold-Ribbed Hare's Ear Nymph
A rough, generalist nymph whose hare dubbing, metallic rib, tail, thorax, and wing case can suggest several immature aquatic insects without copying one species exactly.Nymph · Original Doug Prince recipe: #6–12
Prince Nymph
A high-contrast searching nymph built from a peacock-herl body, gold rib, forked brown biot tail, swept brown hackle, and white biot V-wing; the reviewed bead-head form adds weight and flash.Nymph · #12–18 are common starting sizes
Perdigon Nymph
A bead-led, resin-coated competition nymph built to reach fast or deep lanes with a small, low-drag profile.Dry · #14–24 in the Orvis tying source
Griffith's Gnat
A simple peacock-herl and grizzly-hackle midge dry that can suggest one tiny adult, a clustered surface meal, or another very small insect at the film.Emerger · #12–20 in the Fly Fishers International recipe
X-Caddis
Craig Mathews's low-riding, hackleless caddis transition pattern, built with a thin trailing shuck, dubbed body, and tented deer- or elk-hair wing.Dry · #4–16
Stimulator
A buoyant hair-wing attractor and stonefly-style dry built for broken water and dry-dropper use.Terrestrial · #6–16 in Umpqua's production range
Chubby Chernobyl
A high-floating foam-and-synthetic-yarn attractor with rubber legs, built to remain visible in broken water and suspend a proportionate dropper.Dry · #14–18
PMD Comparadun
A low-riding, hackleless Pale Morning Dun dry with a fan-shaped deer-hair wing.Fly family · Commonly #10–14
March Brown Dry Flies
A family destination for dry flies used around March Brown mayfly adults—not one exact recipe.Fly family · Often #14–24
Blue-Winged Olive Patterns
A stage-based family for olive-bodied mayfly nymphs, emergers, adults, cripples, and spinners.Fly family · Varies by species
Caddis Pupa Patterns
A family of subsurface caddis patterns spanning pupa, ascending emerger, and soft-hackle presentations.Fly family · #4–18 depending on species
Stonefly Nymph Patterns
A broad family of two-tailed, bottom-oriented stonefly nymph imitations in many sizes and weights.Fly family · #12–20
Ant Patterns
Dry and sunken terrestrial patterns unified by an ant's pinched waist and two-lobed body.Fly family · #10–18
Beetle Patterns
Low-profile terrestrial patterns built to suggest a rounded beetle shell and short legs.Fly family · #6–14
Grasshopper Patterns
A family of foam, hair, and low-riding dry flies used to imitate grasshoppers and other large terrestrials.Fly family · #4–14
Leech Patterns
A mobile streamer family spanning marabou, rabbit-strip, balanced, and sparse leech profiles.Fly family · #2–12
Sculpin Patterns
A bottom-oriented streamer family built around a broad head and tapered baitfish body.Fly family · #10–20
Soft-Hackle Wet Flies
A family of sparse wet flies whose mobile feather collar suggests legs, wings, or an emerging insect.Fly family · Match the water, quarry, and tackle
Trout Streamer Patterns
A planning family for general trout streamer wording when an exact named pattern or forage shape is not supplied.Dry · #10–20
Adams Dry Fly
The classic upright-wing Adams: a gray-bodied dry with mixed brown-and-grizzly tail and hackle.Nymph · #18–24
Black Beauty Midge
Pat Dorsey's sparse black midge-larva or pupa imitation with a fine rib and compact thorax.Emerger · #16–24 in the Orvis standard recipe
WD-40
Mark Engler's sparse beadless emerger: one barred-fiber bunch forms the tail and wing case around a slim thread abdomen and tiny dubbed thorax.Nymph · #18–24
Mercury Midge
Pat Dorsey's glass-bead midge pattern with a slim thread body and fine wire rib.Emerger · #20–26
Top Secret Midge
Pat Dorsey's tiny brown midge emerger with a white thread rib, sparkle-organza wing, and rusty thorax.Nymph · #16–24
Juju Baetis
Charlie Craven's slim Baetis-style nymph with a segmented synthetic body, wing case, and sparse profile.Nymph · Small tailwater sizes
Micro May
A compact bead-head mayfly nymph used as a small dropper or in a multi-nymph rig.Emerger · Hendrickson recipe: #12–16
Sparkle Dun
Craig Mathews's hackleless, flush-floating mayfly transition dry, distinguished from a Comparadun by its trailing Zelon shuck.Dry · #12–18, matched to naturals
Rusty Spinner
A spent-wing mayfly pattern with a rust-brown body, divided tails, and flat outstretched wings.Dry · #20–24
Trico Spinner
A very small spent-wing pattern for Trico spinner falls, with a sparse low flat profile.Dry · #10–18
Royal Wulff
A buoyant hair-wing attractor with white upright wings, peacock body sections, and a red center band.Emerger · #12–18
LaFontaine Sparkle Pupa
Gary LaFontaine's caddis-pupa design using a translucent Antron-style veil to suggest the emergence envelope.Dry · Often #14–18
Sulphur Comparadun
A pale orange-yellow, hackleless Comparadun tied specifically for Sulphur mayfly duns.Wet Fly · FFI and Orvis references: #12–18
Partridge and Orange
A traditional North Country-style soft hackle built from a slim orange body and sparse partridge collar, presented with two named comparison flies so users can identify it by construction instead of by collar feather alone.Nymph · #10–20 in the Orvis tying recipe
Copper John
John Barr's dense attractor nymph, built around a bead, splayed biot tails, wire abdomen, peacock-style thorax, flash-backed dark wing case, and soft legs.Fly family · Match the local insect
Mayfly Patterns by Stage
A stage-first guide for reports that name a mayfly but do not identify a species or exact fly.Fly family · Often #14–20
Pale Morning Dun Patterns
A stage-based PMD family spanning nymphs, emergers, duns, cripples, soft hackles, and spinners.Fly family · Often #14–18
Sulphur Mayfly Patterns
A pale-mayfly stage family for Sulphur nymphs, emergers, duns, cripples, soft hackles, and spinners.Fly family · Often #20–24
Trico Patterns
A tiny-mayfly family covering Trico nymphs, emergers, duns, clusters, and spent spinners.Fly family · Large mayfly sizes
Green Drake Patterns
A large-mayfly family for Green Drake nymphs, emergers, cripples, duns, and spinners where the hatch occurs.Fly family · Large mayfly sizes
Brown Drake Patterns
A large-mayfly family separating Brown Drake nymphs, emergers, duns, and pale Coffin Fly spinner forms.Fly family · Often #12–16
Hendrickson Patterns
An eastern mayfly family spanning nymphs, emergers, duns, soft hackles, Sparkle Duns, and spinners.Fly family · The adult references range by species and generation
Callibaetis Patterns
A stillwater guide showing how real Callibaetis adults vary across three named species, and how to choose stage, size, and presentation without treating one mottled-wing dry as the whole hatch.Fly family · Small mayfly sizes
Blue Quill Patterns
A small eastern mayfly family for Blue Quill nymphs, emergers, duns, and spinners.Fly family · No universal hook size
Quill Gordon Patterns
An early eastern mayfly guide that uses three exact Epeorus pleuralis natural references to separate aquatic anatomy from wet, emerger, dry, and spinner fly choices.Fly family · Often #12–18
Light Cahill Patterns
A pale eastern mayfly family for Light Cahill nymphs, emergers, traditional or parachute dries, and spinners.Fly family · Often #10–14
Isonychia and Mahogany Dun Patterns
A stage-based Isonychia family, including report wording such as Mahogany Dun or Slate Drake.Fly family · Large mayfly sizes
Hex Mayfly Patterns
A large-mayfly family for Hexagenia nymph, emerger, dun, and spinner imitations.Fly family · No universal hook size
Gray Fox Mayfly Patterns
A March Brown and Gray Fox naming guide that uses exact Maccaffertium vicarium natural references while keeping aquatic, emerger, dun, wet, and spinner choices separate.Fly family · Often #18–26
Midge Patterns by Stage
A stage-first midge family for larva, pupa, emerger, adult, and cluster patterns.Fly family · Match local species
Caddis Patterns by Stage
A lifecycle guide for caddis larva, pupa, emerger, adult, spent, and skated dry patterns.Fly family · Often large caddis sizes
October Caddis Patterns
A large fall-caddis family separating larva, pupa, wet or emerger, and adult dry forms.Fly family · Species and instar vary
Caddis Larva Patterns
A bottom-stage guide separating exposed net-spinning larvae from portable-case builders without calling every green caddis larva a free-living rockworm.Nymph · #6–10 in the coffee-and-black club guide
Pat's Rubber Legs
Pat Bennett's heavy chenille-and-rubber stonefly nymph: simple enough for a guide box, mobile enough for rough current, and variable enough that every bead, color, and hook form must be named.Terrestrial · Multiple small-to-medium sizes
Hippie Stomper
Andrew Grillos's compact foam attractor with a visible wing, hackle, hair tail, and rubber legs.Terrestrial · #8–14
PMX
A low-riding, highly visible all-purpose attractor with a parachute post, hair, hackle, and rubber legs.Nymph · #8–12 in the Pacific Northwest guide
San Juan Worm
A deliberately simple subsurface worm pattern whose chenille, yarn, wire, or flexible body is secured along a curved hook, with every material and weighted form kept explicitly labeled.Nymph · #10–12
Green Weenie
A bright chartreuse chenille pattern with a short looped tail, associated with Pennsylvania trout fishing.Fly family · Varies widely by species and river
Stonefly Patterns by Stage
A stage-first guide separating bottom-oriented nymphs from emerging and adult stonefly patterns.Fly family · Often small stonefly sizes
Yellow Sally Patterns
A small-stonefly family separating dark or mottled nymphs from yellow-toned adult dry patterns.Fly family · Adult patterns often #8–10
Skwala Stonefly Patterns
An early-season stonefly family with separate bottom nymph and low-riding olive adult patterns.Fly family · Large stonefly sizes
Golden Stonefly Patterns
A large-stonefly family separating robust golden nymphs from winged adult dry patterns.Fly family · Large stonefly sizes
Salmonfly Patterns
A very large stonefly family separating crawling nymphs from substantial adult dry patterns.Fly family · Small to medium stonefly sizes
Black Stonefly Patterns
A dark-stonefly family separating small black nymphs from winged adult patterns.Fly family · Species and watershed dependent
Nocturnal Stonefly Patterns
A timing-and-stage guide that separates bottom nymphs, short-winged Claassenia evidence, and long-winged adult dries before a low-light stonefly choice is made.Fly family · Tiny ants through very large cicadas
Terrestrial Patterns
A field guide separating ant, beetle, hopper, cricket, cicada, and general attractor silhouettes.Fly family · Large terrestrials
Cicada Patterns
Large buoyant terrestrial patterns matched to locally present cicadas rather than one universal recipe.Fly family · University of Minnesota Extension gives a 1/2–3/4 inch body range for field crickets
Cricket Patterns
A practical terrestrial guide using one North American field-cricket species to separate adult female, adult male, and wingless nymph silhouettes before choosing an honest floating artificial.Fly family · Large surface flies relative to ordinary trout dries
Mouse Patterns
A surface-presentation guide that separates small-mammal body proportion, fly construction, and the wake a mouse pattern must create.Fly family · Varies by pattern and regulation
Worm Patterns
A regulation-aware decision guide separating fine aquatic worms, aquatic blackworms, terrestrial earthworms, and the many artificial patterns that may suggest them.Fly family · Aquatic Tipulidae larvae in the USU key span roughly 10–100 mm
Crane Fly Patterns
A stage guide separating elongated legless crane-fly larvae from gangly one-pair-wing adults while requiring local evidence before either becomes a fishing choice.Fly family · Small dry-fly sizes
Mosquito Patterns
A life-stage guide separating the delicate winged adult from aquatic mosquito larvae and comma-shaped pupae before choosing a fly or waterline.Fly family · Small to large
Foam Attractor Dry Patterns
A cross-insect family of buoyant foam dries built for visibility, flotation, and a suggestive terrestrial profile.Streamer · Often #4–8
Coffey's Sparkle Minnow
Greg Coffey's cone-head, marabou-and-flash baitfish streamer for swinging, stripping, or controlled dead drifts.Streamer · Commonly #6–12
Muddler Minnow
Don Gapen's classic sculpin-style streamer with a spun deer-hair head, mottled turkey wing, and metallic body.Streamer · Pearl Zonker source: #2–6 on a 3X-long streamer hook
Zonker Streamer
Dan Byford's rabbit-strip baitfish streamer, reviewed through the traditional reflective Pearl Zonker while an exact weighted Point Up Zonker Sculpin variation makes the family range visible.Streamer · #2–10 for the marabou form
Black Ghost Streamer
Herb Welch's black-bodied Maine streamer, represented here by the common white-marabou-wing form.Streamer · #2–6 in the FFI guide
Gray Ghost
Carrie Stevens's layered Rangeley-style featherwing streamer with an orange body and long gray wing.Streamer · #4–14
Mickey Finn
A classic sparse bucktail streamer with a yellow-red-yellow wing, metallic body, silver rib, and black head.Fly family · Match the local forage and tackle
Baitfish and Minnow Patterns
A forage-first streamer family separating slim, weighted, reflective, and species-shaped baitfish silhouettes.Fly family · No universal size
Articulated Trout Streamer Patterns
A construction-and-forage guide for choosing joint count, body depth, head shape, hooks, ballast, and retrieve before naming an articulated trout streamer.Streamer · The FFI guide documents a #4 example
Clouser Deep Minnow
Bob Clouser's sparse dumbbell-eye baitfish pattern, designed for smallmouth bass and now used across fresh and salt water.Streamer · No universal size
Chocklett's Game Changer
Blane Chocklett's multi-jointed baitfish platform, whose connected sections and front-to-rear taper keep swimming and turning after the strip stops.Other · 2XL streamer hooks #4, #6, or #8 in the BSA tying guide
Sneaky Pete Slider
A tapered-head bass slider that glides, wakes, and pulses with less blunt surface noise than a cupped-face popper.Other · FFI documents sizes #10 through #2 depending on target
Stealth Bomber
Kent Edmonds's folded-sheet-foam diver and slider for bass, bream, and other warmwater fish.Fly family · Small panfish through large bass sizes
Bass and Panfish Popper Patterns
A surface family defined by a forward face that pushes, spits, or pops water rather than one exact recipe.Fly family · Small panfish bugs through large bass flies
Warmwater Slider and Diver Patterns
A practical surface-action guide for choosing a quiet gliding slider or a strip-to-dive bug by prey shape, head action, cover, and fish response—not by color alone.Fly family · Small panfish bugs through large bass flies
Warmwater Surface Bug Patterns
A construction-and-silhouette family for foam, deer-hair, frog, and other warmwater surface bugs without an exact pattern name.Fly family · Match local crayfish and quarry
Crayfish and Crawfish Patterns
A bottom-oriented family separating realistic, buggy, jigged, and molting crayfish silhouettes.Fly family · Large nymph sizes
Hellgrammite Patterns
A large aquatic-larva family with an elongated segmented body, lateral filaments, six thoracic legs, and paired terminal hooks.Fly family · Match local nymphs
Damselfly Nymph Patterns
A slender stillwater-and-slow-water nymph family with a narrow body and three leaf-like tail gills.Fly family · Mature size varies widely by family and instar
Dragonfly Nymph Patterns
A natural-body-plan guide separating streamlined swimming darners from broader crawling and burrowing dragonfly nymphs without collapsing all Odonata into one weighted olive fly.Fly family · Match local forage, target species, and tackle
Warmwater Baitfish Patterns
A warmwater forage family separating shad-shaped, articulated, lightly weighted, and general minnow streamers.Fly family · Common examples span roughly #4–12, but fly mass, prey scale, water depth, leader, and fish behavior matter more than the family label
Carp Fly Patterns
A sight-fishing decision guide for choosing a carp fly by the fish's feeding lane, prey shape, landing softness, sink rate, and hook orientation instead of one universal pattern.Fly family · Match prey, target fish, and tackle
Warmwater Bottom Bug and Swimming Nymph Patterns
A planning family for jigged, rubber-legged, swimming, and bottom-oriented warmwater nymph wording without an exact recipe.Egg Flesh · #12–14 in the Orvis trout recipe
Sucker Spawn
A looped-yarn egg-cluster pattern whose connected bulges create a longer, irregular food profile than a single round egg fly.Egg Flesh · #6–12 in the Orvis single-hook bead recipe
Egg-Sucking Leech
A mobile leech or streamer body combined with a distinct contrasting egg-like front trigger, with bead, cone, tube, rabbit-strip, articulated, and Woolly-Bugger-based forms kept explicitly labeled.Egg Flesh · Mustad C67S #12 in the Orvis recipe
Glo Bug
A sparse clipped-yarn egg fly whose round body and optional contrasting center dot create a compact single-egg profile around a visible hook.Egg Flesh · No universal size
Estaz Egg
A bright egg-style fly built from dense sparkly Estaz or similar chenille around the hook.Wet Fly · Approximately two inches in the Orvis recipe
Hoh Bo Spey
Charles St. Pierre's sparse Intruder-style steelhead fly with a compact shank, dubbing station, flash, and marabou collar.Wet Fly · No universal size
Green Butt Skunk
A classic steelhead hairwing built around a fluorescent-green butt, dark body, silver rib, dark hackle, and pale wing.Wet Fly · No universal size
Freight Train
A classic Pacific Northwest steelhead hairwing with fluorescent butt sections, a dark body, and a sparse pale wing.Wet Fly · No universal size
Silver Hilton
A classic dark steelhead wet fly distinguished by a silver body and dark feather or hair wing.Wet Fly · No universal size
Brindle Bug
A compact classic steelhead wet fly with a mottled dark body, contrasting hackle, and simple low-water profile.Wet Fly · No universal size
Comet
A bright West Coast salmon and shad fly built around a long tail, chenille body, palmered or collared hackle, and prominent eyes.Wet Fly · No universal size
Polar Shrimp
A classic salmon and steelhead hairwing whose orange-red body and pale wing suggest—but do not literally copy—a shrimp.Saltwater · No universal size
Lefty's Deceiver
Lefty Kreh's adaptable baitfish style combining a feather tail with a bucktail collar that resists fouling.Saltwater · Original saltwater recipe: #4–2/0
Gartside Gurgler
Jack Gartside's original one-piece-foam surface commotion fly: sparse tail, five segmented foam sections, palmered hackle, over-shell, and a raised front lip.Saltwater · No universal hook size
Crease Fly
Joe Blados's folded-foam baitfish fly: a narrow hollow shell that floats, pops, wakes, and pushes water without becoming a cylindrical popper.Saltwater · Traditional FFI reference: Tiemco 811S #4 or equivalent
Merkin Crab
Del Brown's weighted hook-point-up crab fly: splayed hackle claws and flash, a flat trimmed body, mobile rubber legs, and dumbbell ballast arranged to descend at an angle.Saltwater · No universal production size
Double Deceiver
A long, articulated baitfish platform that carries Deceiver-style feather, bucktail, flash, or synthetic volume across connected rear and front tying sections.Saltwater · No universal size
Half-and-Half
A Clouser-and-Deceiver hybrid pairing a feather tail with a dumbbell-eye bucktail front section.Fly family · No universal family size
EP Minnow & EP-Style Baitfish
A source-controlled family guide for synthetic-fiber baitfish commonly reported as EP minnows or EP-style baitfish, compared through three distinctly named dressings instead of one invented universal recipe.Fly family · No universal size
Egg Fly Patterns
A family separating tied yarn, chenille, veiled, clustered, and other hook-mounted egg imitations from loose beads and bait.Fly family · No universal size
Flesh Fly Patterns
A natural-food family for flies that suggest salmon-flesh fragments carried downstream after spawning, with compact, articulated, washed-out, fresh-color, and egg-and-flesh forms kept distinct.Fly family · No universal size
Intruder-Style Steelhead Flies
Ed Ward's large-profile, sparsely dressed swing-fly concept for salmon and steelhead, now tied on shanks and tubes in many colors and material systems.Fly family · No universal size
Tube Fly Patterns
A construction-first guide to flies tied on a hollow tube rather than directly on a hook shank, with the body, leader path, junction system, replaceable hook, tube material, and exact fly pattern kept as separate decisions.Fly family · No universal size
Steelhead Wet, Spey, and Hairwing Patterns
An orientation guide to classic swung steelhead flies, keeping compact hairwings, long-hackled Spey styles, sparse low-water wets, and marabou attractors separate from modern Intruder and tube constructions.Fly family · No universal size
Steelhead Skater and Bomber Patterns
A surface family separating waking or riffle-hitched skaters from bushy floating Bomber-style dries.Fly family · NOAA's Atlantic salmon presence table gives a 2–3 cm alevin range
Salmon Alevin Patterns
A lifecycle-first alevin guide showing the tiny translucent fish and attached yolk sac clearly enough to separate it from an egg fly, free-feeding fry, parr, smolt, or generic orange-bead streamer.Fly family · No universal size
Anadromous Baitfish and Coho Streamer Patterns
A migratory-fish streamer family for emerald shiners, smelt, sparse flash flies, and bright coho-oriented baitfish forms.Fly family · No universal size: the cited Single-Wing example uses a 1/0 hook, but feather length, hook, body depth, and overall fly length must match the target forage and tackle
Flatwing Streamer Patterns
A prey-first flatwing guide using real silverside and sand-lance photography to separate translucency, body depth, side flash, and habitat before the angler chooses feather count, support, line, and retrieve.Fly family · No universal fly size: match the locally observed sand lance or sand-eel report by body length and depth
Sand Eel Fly Patterns
A coastal guide comparing two named sand-lance forms and one natural school before choosing the length, depth, flexibility, and flash of an honestly labeled sand-eel imitation.Fly family · No universal size
Saltwater Crab Fly Patterns
A saltwater crab selection guide for matching shell width, claw proportion, leg motion, swimming ability, bottom posture, ballast, and hook orientation to the exact coast and target.Fly family · No universal size
Shrimp and Mysis Fly Patterns
A crustacean family separating translucent grass shrimp, compact mysis, spawning shrimp, and larger saltwater shrimp profiles.Fly family · No universal size
Shad Fly and Dart Patterns
A small bright migratory-shad family covering weighted darts, compact Comet-style flies, and sparse pink or chartreuse wets.Fly family · No universal size
Pike and Musky Predator Fly Patterns
A large-predator family separating long synthetic baitfish, rabbit-strip streamers, articulated profiles, divers, and surface flies.Fly family · No universal size
Saltwater Baitfish Fly Patterns
A broad coastal family for bunker, anchovy, silverside, synthetic-minnow, and weedless baitfish forms without a named recipe.Nymph · #12–18 in the Orvis variant
Pink Squirrel
John Bethke's Driftless-region attractor nymph with a buggy squirrel-dubbing body and unmistakable fluorescent-pink thorax.Nymph · Often #12–18
Ray Charles Sowbug
A Bighorn-origin sowbug pattern with a soft ostrich-herl body, pearl flashback, and bright thread head.Nymph · Orvis standard: #14 on a standard nymph hook
Frenchie Nymph
A slim competition-style Pheasant Tail derivative that replaces the traditional PT thorax and legs with a bright dubbed thorax or collar, a Coq de Leon tail, durable wire rib, and fast-sinking bead.Nymph · #12–22 in the Orvis recipe
Rainbow Warrior
Lance Egan's compact pearl-and-red attractor nymph, combining a silver bead, pheasant-tail tail, reflective Flashabou abdomen and wing case, rainbow dubbing thorax, and red collar.Streamer · #4–12 on a Tiemco 5263 in the olive Orvis recipe
Slumpbuster
John Barr's conehead pine-squirrel streamer, combining a reflective braid body, wire-ribbed hide strip, broad mobile collar, and long tail in a compact single-hook profile.Wet Fly · Traditional wet-fly sizes vary
Montreal Wet Fly
A historic Canadian winged wet fly with a red tail, dark ribbed body, dark hackle, and mottled light-and-dark wing.Fly family · Commonly #12–18 in the Simple Scud
Scud Fly Patterns
A freshwater amphipod family defined by a curved shellback, segmented body, many short legs, and locally variable size and color.Fly family · Often #12–18 in tailwater patterns
Sowbug and Cress Bug Patterns
A freshwater isopod family with a flattened oval body and overlapping dorsal segmentation, distinct from the side-curved scud profile.Fly family · No universal size
General Nymph Patterns
A deliberately broad family for source rows that identify only a nymph's size, weight, or general profile—not its insect or recipe.Fly family · No universal size
Jig Fly Patterns
A hook-and-weighting family in which an angled jig hook—and commonly a compatible slotted bead—supports compact nymphs, bottom bugs, and mobile streamers without turning those different bodies into one pattern.Fly family · Utah State University Extension gives a natural-larva range of roughly 3–12 mm
Black Fly Larva Patterns
A flowing-water larva guide separating the club-shaped Simuliidae body, attached colony behavior, and compact cocooned pupa so a tiny dark recommendation does not collapse into a midge or generic thread fly.Fly family · The Fly Fish Food Split Case PMD source describes #16–20