Match the hatch?

Despite the hype from tackle merchants, most artificial flies only ever catch humans. Trout, it seems, don’t share our obsession with fly patterns

- RICHARD WILSON

TROUT fishing is a battle of wits, pitting wily angler against crafty fish. It is an undisputed fact that it takes a canny fisher to catch a canny fish. We know this to be true because clever fisherfolk write books and articles in which their sophistication and guile always win the day. For the rest of us there are no bragging rights in dumb failure, so we scour magazines and the internet hoping for enlightenment. This quest for wisdom amounts to just one all-important question. It’s the one we  ask of every angler we meet on the bank. And it’s the first thing we say to anyone who’s just caught a trout: “What’s the fly?” Not “How long is that rod?”, “Nice waistcoat” or “That’s a cool net”. Nor do we ask about spiritual incantations or performance-enhancing drugs. Just the fly.