A friend of mine who is new to fly fishing recently asked me what dry flies he should get, and to be honest I just said Adams, EHC's and royal wulfs. But now I kind of feel bad, most of our fishing is done in NC PA, so I wondered what would a dozen good dry flies be to get him through the year, I mean there are so many, what do you guys reccomend, I rarely dry fish, I exclusively nymph for the most part and I'm kind of looking into this as well any help is appreciated. I just dont want to overlook something and have him say thanks a-hole

Those are 3 good ones.

How about Blue Winged Olives?

Griffith Gnat

The three you mention are a good start. Generally, insects tend to be a bit larger upstate. I'd add the following (or something like this):

- Blue Winged Olives, size #20
-Sulpher, #14
-Elk hair caddis (cream and gray) #16
-Midge (any pattern - black or cream #22)
-Rusty Spinner #14
-Stimulator #10
-Ant, black #14
-Ant, cinnamon #20
-Foam Beetle, black #14

Haha! Welcome to opening the can of worms, brother! Honestly, I could survive in NCPA with the three dries you listed. I can survive in SE PA w/ those three flies, especially on native and wild streams.

That being said, I love being in NCPA during hatches. Some of my favorite memories over the years have been catching hatches on those NCPA streams. Ones that stick out to me the most would be the sulphurs, green drakes, and march browns. If I lived in NCPA and fished there most of the time, I'd try to at least catch those hatches.

Hendricksons, quill gordons, blue quills, green caddis. tan caddis, green drake, coffin fly, rusty spinner, isonychia, baetis, cinnamon caddis, the hatches pretty follow that order, but vary from time to time. For attractor patterns royal wullf, stimulator, adams. Most of the time in NC PA you will not be fishing hatches, but use hatch charts to tell you what should be hatching and use the apporpriate fly and you will catch plenty of fish, this is my method for fishing NC PA, and it works.

Thanks everyone, and fish idiot thanks for the size recomendations, as I told him14 in caddis and 18 in BWO, and thanks for the list Chaz i wrote it donw. Squatch, those are basically the only dry flies i carry in a couple different sizes in case the fish are spooked by an indicator. But funny you mention it, I was able to hit a sulphur hatch last year one day on the EBCR DALO and came back the next day to not see a fly, just some cream cahills here and there. AFter that I did get some sulphur dry flies because they wouldnt even look at anything else.

I'd advise keeping his fly selection simple...a parachute adams will cover a multitude of dark-bodied mayfly hatches and makes for a good all-around attractor fly...sizes #12-#18, and few #20s will do.

Tan Caddis are common enough to carry in your box whenever you fish. I liked to carry them sizes #14-#18

You can also add some sulfurs (Emerger/Dun/Spinner) when they start, but that's still a few months off - he can buy them then...I carried them in sizes #14-#18.

Unless I absolutely have to, I'm not into the whole matching the hatch to an exact point. With that being said, my basic dozen would include..
Para Adams #12-#18
Griffith's Gnat #16-#22
Various colors of Comparaduns #14-#18
Royal Wulff #10-#14

Love these threads as it allows me to look into my fly organizers and see what I'm missing. Much appreciated gents.

FishI's list is a pretty good one.......I would go along with that.

Quote:

great list !

i wish i'd had that a few months back when i was adding to my collection of dry flies.

1.Daves Hopper 10
2.BWO 18-20
3.Griffiths Gnat 16-20
4.Mosquito 14-18
5.Beetle 14-16
6.Sulpher 12-16
7.Adams14-18
8. Royal Wulff 12-16
9.Elk hair caddis 16
10.Zebra Midge 20-24

Big fan of terrestrials :p