The Top 40

To this day, a lovely fly to entice trout, whether brookies, rainbows, or browns. A variation thereof, tied with white calf tail, in a size 16, stood me well on many a small creek in Idaho, catching cutthroats in abundance, rather than brookies.

The Royal Coachman is an attractor pattern as it doesn't resemble any particular insect. Does a nice job of attracting strikes when there is no hatch on the water. Can be fished either wet or dry and is sometimes tied as a streamer or bucktail.

Quit using it back in the 70s when I discovered the hair-wing Rio Grande King. Another attractor that is easy to tie and use.

Unlike some lures I've seen, it actually catches fish instead of just fishermen. Back in the late '60s-early '70s, I used it to catch a number of smallmouth bass on the Michigan lake I lived on at the time. I was too young to know any better, and the bass didn't care that it was supposed to be for trout.

Waltj, those smallies will eat just about anything that looks like food. They're fun to catch, too, cause they're so scrappy. Just because a fly is tied for supposedly enticing trout doesn't mean some other fish species won't eat it just as readily.

True enough. When the smallmouths were hungry, I could catch them on anything from dry flies, to Rapalas, to spinners, to rubber worms. When they went quiet, nothing could persuade them to strike. At least nothing that I had in my tackle box.

When they aren't biting, a little dynamite will show those piscine sumbitches who is the top of the food chain.