They represent nothing really.

[bushy palmer]

Well, I stated the things I thought apply. Don't know about arguments as such. Anybody can believe whatever they want to believe.

Fish don't "believe" or disbelieve anything at all. They operate on instinct. As soon as any anthropomorphising is done all sense is lost.

If you think something is bollocks, then that's fine, its up to you. If flies don't need to look like anything then why bother ?  All this discussion is then superfluous.

Mike, you said that "Experience proves beyond a doubt that good insect imitations properly presented catch fish better than poor ones. ." (note the omission of any such phrase as "I believe" or "IMHO"- instead you present this as indisputable fact) the implication being that if "hatch matching" produces more takes than any other form in the majority of cases which in my opinion is a load of rubbish. As fly tyers and fishermen using artificial flies with metal hooks sticking out their arses and a rope coming from their mouths, at best (if used correctly) we can imitate life- beyond that we can only surmise why the fish reacts the way it does.
Now some people I know, will walk for miles up the river bank picking off only the fish they see rising. I find this astonishing and will concede that if you want to limit yourself in this way to catching just the fish which are showing I can understand why you would give yourself the impression that you must match the hatch but that isn't the majority of cases. Consider however, that the fish you actually see rising make up about 1% (if that) of the fish held in the system- hardly the majority of cases.

When I approach a stretch of water I will first pick off the two or three risers using a dry (good imitations or otherwise) When each of the rising fish has been caught hooked or spooked this becomes an obsolete method (no matter how good your imitations) at which point you must decide whether to move on or change method. At this point I will then concentrate my efforts on the fish that aren't showing themselves. I do this with a range of suggestive wets and nymphs and latterly lures (some of which look like the lure you donated to recent fund raiser which imitated nothing but suggested life). From the same stretch of water that produced the two or three feeding fish caught on imitations (close or otherwise) I will catch dozens on these other methods.

So when I ask " in the experience of whom?" I mean just that. Are we talking about the guy who will move on to another stretch of water because there are no more fish rising to cast to or the more rounded angler who will extract the maximum amount of fish using more suggestive methods?

The original sentiment to which you apparently disagreed was that flies don't have to look like anything only that they need to look like food (or threat) and therefore trout must see things a bit differently from us. To which you responded that the most effective methods are good insect imitations. I now see having read your subsequent posts that you are now posting that it doesn't need to look like a good imitation to us –only food for the trout. So in a round-and-about kind of way, I think we're now in agreement. :?

[Traditionalist]

How you interpret what I write is up to you. Of course what I write is my opinion, if it was somebody else's I would say so.

Some things are fact, but everything is disputable. Some people will happily ignore or dispute facts. I do not want to dispute anything really I merely noted my disagreement with the statement that flies don't have to imitate anything, they most certainly do have to imitate something for the fish, how various people interpret that in human terms is another matter altogether.

When I fish a specific hatch with a good matching artificial I invariably catch more fish than I would,( or have done in the past ), with various generics.  I have tried both approaches very extensively over more than fifty years, and I know many others who have done the same. If it didn't work I wouldn't do it. Up to now nobody who does it has disagreed with that approach.  If you use some other approach that works for you then that's fine.

I do not compete with other anglers.  Whether somebody else catches more or less is a matter of complete indifference to me. The only person to blame if you are not catching fish is yourself. If it was a competition I wouldnt do it at all.

There are no absolutes in fly-fishing, there are various ways to do various things, some work well and  consistently, and others less so.  Whatever method or approach you choose is a purely personal matter.

If you want to fish polystyrene balls instead of flies because you once found some in a fish then go ahead, you will doubtless also eventually catch a fish on them, you just wont catch very many or very often.

I think trout see things much the same as humans do, because if they didn't the vast majority of flies dressed to suit human perceptions either wouldn't work at all, or not very well, and as we all know, they do, but what fish perceive is a completely different matter. Indeed, in my opinion the only reason fly-fishing works as well as it does is due to fish having blurred or less acute perceptions.  NOTE!  Perceptions!! Not senses, like sight. That is doubtless very acute, but sight perception is a phenomenon that occurs in the brain, and is not likely to be acute in a fish. That also helps to explain why fish take all sorts of things on occasion, they see it perfectly well but can not perceive it to any great degree or use that perception to analyse it.

What look like very good imitations to humans, some "realistic" flies being an excellent case in point, are invariably very poor fish catchers, even if they work at all.

If you want things to work well, you can not base your ideas on what fish do or why they do it on human perceptions at all.  Nor can you determine fish reactions by extrapolation from human or any other behaviour.  All you have to go on are the reactions themselves.  The whole of fly fishing is based on the simple fact that fish are known to take various things, mainly as food but there may well be other reasons, and the artificials are all based to some extent on that premise.

If you are going to analyse and disagree with various things based on spurious semantics, that is up to you. I see no point in it. It does not further my understanding of anything at all and is basically a waste of time and effort.

There are exceptions and complete contradictions to lots of things. That's how it is. I can not condense something like that into an inarguable sentence or some sort of rule.  I try to write as clearly as I possibly can when expressing an opinion but that still does not guarantee that everybody will understand it, and I certainly do not expect other people to agree with everything I write.

What you take from what other people have to say is up to you. They have no control over it. Also, if you vehemently disagree with something or other, or even just the way it is presented, you can simply ignore it.

I don't care whether you or anybody else agrees with what I write. If it helps somebody in some way then that's fine.

Interesting signature there as well;

"Stop confusing me with facts, I've already made up my mind!!"

I never make up my mind entirely about anything at all, things change all the time, knowledge and experience increases, ( for some anyway), and viewpoints may change. Keeps things interesting.

[bushy palmer]

Funny that Mike, You say it's not about competition but there you go trying to pull rank by implying that your 50 years experience should somehow belittle my 30 years fishing experience.

What indisputable facts am I ignoring Mike? That experience proves beyond a doubt that good insect imitations ect ect. . .

Ok so you have fished hatches over the years with what you believe to be good imitations of flies and as such have found some flies that you have confidence in as have I and at least three other posters in this thread. It so happens that the flies we have confidence in are generic patterns and hence our collective experience dictates that it doesn't matter a toss what the fly looks like so long as you have confidence in it.

"If you are going to analyse and disagree with various things based on spurious semantics, that is up to you. I see no point in it. It does not further my understanding of anything at all and is basically a waste of time and effort."

"Also, if you vehemently disagree with something or other, or even just the way it is presented, you can simply ignore it."

Wasn't it you who read the original post several times before deciding to stick your oar in and disagree with it rather than choosing to ignore it?

"If you want to fish polystyrene balls instead of flies because you once found some in a fish then go ahead, you will doubtless also eventually catch a fish on them, you just wont catch very many or very often."

Funnily enough, a regular fishing companion of mine fishes almost exclusively with something he calls a suspender buzzer which is just some tying thread on a hook with a polystyrene ball on the end. He catches many and often with it.

[Traditionalist]

Funny that Mike, You say it's not about competition but there you go trying to pull rank by implying that your 50 years experience should somehow belittle my 30 years fishing experience.

What indisputable facts am I ignoring Mike? That experience proves beyond a doubt that good insect imitations ect ect. . .

Ok so you have fished hatches over the years with what you believe to be good imitations of flies and as such have found some flies that you have confidence in as have I and at least three other posters in this thread. It so happens that the flies we have confidence in are generic patterns and hence our collective experience dictates that it doesn't matter a toss what the fly looks like so long as you have confidence in it.

"If you are going to analyse and disagree with various things based on spurious semantics, that is up to you. I see no point in it. It does not further my understanding of anything at all and is basically a waste of time and effort."

"Also, if you vehemently disagree with something or other, or even just the way it is presented, you can simply ignore it."

Wasn't it you who read the original post several times before deciding to stick your oar in and disagree with it rather than choosing to ignore it?

"If you want to fish polystyrene balls instead of flies because you once found some in a fish then go ahead, you will doubtless also eventually catch a fish on them, you just wont catch very many or very often."

Funnily enough, a regular fishing companion of mine fishes almost exclusively with something he calls a suspender buzzer which is just some tying thread on a hook with a polystyrene ball on the end. He catches many and often with it.

Now you are just being silly.  You can interpret what I write in any way you like and also read implications into all sorts of things if you so wish. Your opinion of what I meant to say or my motivation for saying it is merely your opinion and in a few cases here has nothing at all to do with what I actually wrote. Your interpretation of why and how things occur is your affair.

You are also perfectly entitled to disagree with anything you like.

[Fishtales]

In this rich kaleidoscope of a pastime we call fly fishing it would seem that fishing with whatever concoction you happen to have on the end of your line will catch fish somewhere and at some time. We all use different concoctions with some being more successful than others but at least we are all enjoing ourselves.

Topic now closed before we start to get into why the fish take bungs and egg flies or size 12 dry flies stripped at a hundred miles an hour across the surface etc.

[Malcolm]

My own view is that that I know very little about why a fish will take a fly. As i put in an earlier post these non imitative patterns aren't my first line of attack. I've come across cases when then trout are very finicky indeed as we all have - sometimes a change of colour, size or the aspect of a fly as it drifts seem to me to make a big difference, especially when then are on spent spinners. I've spent ages targeting rising fish and then realised what they are on. Switch to a splayed wing pattern lying flat on the surface and all is right with the world. Maybe these non imitative patterns though would be a good first line of attack but I do like watching what a fish is on, trying to imitate the fly and then only if that fails try the more obscure patterns.