[BobP]

Flies ar broken down into 4 main categories:

1) Dry flies. These generally strive to imitate flies that have hatched from below the surface of the water or have blown there. They are designed to float in or on the surface.

2) Wet flies. Many of these are based on salmon flies and are known as Traditional flies. Some can be traced back 200 years. In some cases there is a vague suggestion in terms of shape, size or colour of invertebrates that live in the water. They rely upon movement imparted by the angler or by the water currents in a river in order to catch fish.

3) Nymphs. These are the inverts that live in the water for a period of months or years before they ascend to the surface to hatch out as adult flies. They are mostly quite slow moving though capable of short bursts of - for them - speed. The term "nymphs" covers a multitude of sins eg, the Damselfly "Nymph" most favoured by small stillwater anglers is often as much as 3" long whereas the natural rarely gets to half of that.

4) Lures. These cover everything not covered above. Mostly brightly coloured and fished at pace. They can be extremely effective when newly stocked fish are around.