Brown trout flies

Cover spring to autumn risers on any freestone stream.

Daddy long legs and bushy palmers dibbled in summer — lethal when trout are cruising the margins.

Upstream to a rising fish, exact imitation, drag-free drift — the chalk-stream equation that sounds simple and reliably isn't. Pale watery through the summer, large dark olive in spring, and infinite patience throughout.

July and August evenings on the Test and Itchen, when the sedge hatch begins and fish that have refused everything all day appear at the surface of every pool. The G&H Sedge was designed for exactly this moment.

When the chalk stream looks completely dead and nothing is hatching, a terrestrial can change everything. Hawthorn in April, flying ants on a hot July afternoon, crane fly from August — one or another is always falling.

Two weeks in May on Corrib or Mask when the green drakes come off and fish that have ignored every fly all season rise with complete abandon. One of the genuinely great events in European fly fishing.

The technique that defines Scottish loch fishing: a bushy pattern left in the wave at the end of each retrieve while the boat drifts on. Fish follow. Sometimes they take on the lift. Sometimes they take you entirely by surprise.

August on a Connemara lough: crane flies blundering into the water, trout rising in the drift lanes. A Daddy Long Legs or foam sedge on a long leader from a drifting boat. The method that works when everything else has been tried.

From June to September, on a warm evening above Larrau or along the Aspe, caddis come on as the light fails and trout that have been invisible all day appear at the surface of every pool. There is no other hatch quite like it.

Two moments that define alpine stream fishing: the early summer stonefly emergence, when a durable dry in fast pocket water draws violent takes, and the evening caddis hatch, when fish show across every riffle at once and delicacy is optional.

When they're bulging, not breaking — fish just under the top.

Swung wets for a team-of-three on glides and riffles.

Drifted on a floating line from a boat — the classic Scottish and Irish reservoir approach.

Trout are head-and-tailing and every instinct says do something — but static is the method. A buzzer or foam emerger hung in the film on a long greased leader, going nowhere, catching fish.

A glass-calm morning at Grafham, trout head-and-tailing in every direction, and all you do is cast out and watch the leader. Nothing happens for a long time. Then it does.

The fish are doing something — a barely-perceptible sip, a bulge with no obvious ring — and the dry fly is being refused. They are in the film. An emerger or spent spinner, presented without drag, is what is needed.

March on the Connacht loughs, the duck fly coming off in cold, gusty weather, trout going mad for something that looks to the untrained eye like nothing in particular. Top dropper, dibbled in the wave, from a drifting boat.

Three flies on a floating line from a drifting boat — Blae & Black on the point, something brighter in the middle, a bushy fly on the top dropper. What the Highland loch has been fished with for generations, and for good reason.

In the peat-stained water of the Connemara loughs, putting the Connemara Black on the top dropper is less a choice than a reflex. A Fiery Brown or Invicta below it, the boat drifting broadside in the west wind.

French no-kill fish see a lot of flies. On the technical sections of the Nive tributaries and Ariège, where the same trout are cast over throughout the season, the standard parachute has a short shelf life. Finer tippet, CDC wing, no thread head.

The alpine stream in limestone country is a different proposition from the boulder river: slower, clearer, and when the Rhithrogena or Baetis come off, genuinely demanding. A CDC emerger sitting in the film rather than on top of it is what is needed.

Two nymphs and a soft hackle that cover most subsurface trout fishing.

Anchored-boat reservoir set-up — buzzer, diawl, searching nymph.

Static or slow-retrieve buzzer pupae with a deep bloodworm — for calm days when trout are keyed in on ascending chironomids at different depths.

The standard small-stillwater rig, which works with an unfair regularity: a buoyant top fly holds the team at a fixed depth while a Diawl Bach and buzzer hang below it, waiting.

Three flies on a slow intermediate, drifted broadside in the wind. Diawl Bach on the point. The method that accounts for more Grafham and Rutland trout than anything else, season after season.

Sawyer's method: find a fish, cast upstream, let the nymph drift toward it, then raise the rod at the right moment. Watch the fish, not the leader. The take registers as a change in posture, not a visible twitch.

When the mayfly's over and the loughs settle into summer, a team of three on a floating or intermediate line covers most sessions. Diawl Bach, buzzer, something with a bit of flash on the point.

On the Border rivers and Northumbrian streams: soft hackles swung through glides, or a single hare's ear trotted upstream through riffles. Greenwell's Spider and Partridge & Orange cover most of it.

As the light goes on a Connemara lough in July, sedge activity begins and the character of the fishing shifts. Warmer tones — Fiery Brown, Peter Ross — and both trout and sea trout become possible from the same drifting boat.

The Pyrenean parcours is known for CDC fishing on top and French nymphs below — what gets overlooked is the swing. A Partridge & Orange or soft hackle olive worked through the current at mid-depth accounts for fish throughout the season and asks nothing difficult of the angler.

When fish are holding in the middle layers of a fast alpine run — not feeding actively on the bottom, not close enough to the surface to take a dry — a soft hackle swung on a floating line or a lightly weighted nymph trotted through covers the ground. Pheasant Tail, Hare's Ear, Soft Hackle Olive: three flies that represent everything a trout in an alpine river is likely to be eating.

Tungsten jigs to reach fast-water trout holding deep.

For high, coloured water or summer dusk prowling.

Point fly lures for fast stripping when trout are chasing fry or not responding to naturals.

Floating flies on a sunk leader — hovering over the bottom while the line pulls them down.

When the naturals aren't working — and sometimes they simply won't — a stripped lure on a fast-sinker or an intermediate is the honest answer. Not pretty, occasionally necessary.

Early season and autumn — the naturals aren't established yet, or they've gone, and the fish want movement and profile. Fast-sink line, counted down to depth, retrieved hard. The Viva earns its reputation.

September on Grafham or Rutland: bow-waves in the margins, fish blasting into clouds of perch fry, everything happening fast. Church Fry, Appetiser, Dog Nobbler — the patterns built for exactly this.

The no-kill sections demand weight, precision and patience: a slim tungsten jig on a long fluorocarbon leader, upstream or across, watched for any hesitation. The Perdigón cuts through faster pocket water; the French Nymph settles into glides. Match the weight to the current.

Most of the time in alpine streams, the fly needs to be deep and get there fast. A heavy stonefly nymph anchors the rig to the bottom while a slim perdigon drops through the pocket above it. Tight-line, leader to hand, strike any hesitation.