Gift Idea

[vicrider 0]

I'd go along with most of the suggestions above except for one thing. You talk of classics. Somehow I can't believe a fly can be a classic if the person who designed it is still alive. The Adams would be a Classic but Klinkhammer? He's still writing articles for magazines. Buggers? Just a new version of the Wooly Worm Classic with a marabout tail. Clousers? Same story. To me if you want flies that everyone knows and fish well in many situations great, if you want classics go to a site that specializes in them and practice up on tying winged wets and streamers. The Coachman and Royal Coachman wet and streamered would be Classics. Soft hackles, particularly silk thread bodied flies with wife wrap, herl collar and partridge are classics.

 

Sounds like a great idea and I wish I had friends who fly fished but all my fishing buddies are hard tackle people.

[squire123 0]

Chromez for me a classic fly is one who's pattern is at least 100 years old, which are the ones I tie and fish. Your friends might find some of these classics interesting.

 

Dry fly . . . the Adams, which works everywhere. It's pattern is only 92 years old but I make an exception because it's basically the Grey Palmer pattern Len Halladay tied for years before he added a wing and named it Adams. To stay past the century mark I suggest the Quill Gordon.

 

Wet fly . . . the classiest fly of all and so many patterns to choose from, I would start with the Professor which tied in different sizes should work in any water where yellow bodied flies abound.

 

Nymphs/Emergers . . . Soft Hackles in any combination of size and color. The simplest of all (just tying thread and a single feather in some) perhaps even entitled to be called the original pattern, it's as effective now as it was centuries ago.

 

Streamers . . . for me this is basically a wet fly tied on an elongated hook with proportionally sized wing and hackle. I would choose one of the wet fly patterns that mimicked the colors of what type bait fish inhabit in the waters where your friends fish.

 

If you haven't already then you may wish to visit www.classicflytying.com

[ditz2 0]

I am with VCrider.......There are maybe modern classics and there are classics and I don't fish trout. Don't confuse the two

[JSzymczyk 0]

somebody better formalize a definition.

[Chromez 0]

I really all the feed back it's great. When I say classic I don't mean modern classics I mean like pioneer flys really old and proven successful over a long period of time flys that have a long history like how the Adams changed the dry fly I'm looking for flys that had an impact on fly fishing history.