[MrEsox]

Kinda got me a bit frustrated looking for fly patterns only to come up with a variation on the same fly over and over and over and over. If I remember right at last count there was 5 Clouser type flies out there only to have differant names and some differant stuffs that it was made of. It still looks like a Clouser but someone else clames it. There are a ton of flies out there that all do about the samething and look the same. I kind of get the feeling that the "to make a buck" has even hit the fly world, or had hit before I got here. As of recently I have been old that I should look into selling some of my flies. Now granted I got a few patterns that look very good and work very well. But some I've taken from other patterns I've seen and do not take credit from it. The 3 patterns I've come up with on my own I've either taken parts from one fly and added parts of another pattern to come up with something differant or actually stumbled on a few ideas that I've not seen yet in my looking. I guess this is more of a rant then anything, but it makes one think a bit. Who does the credit go to when a fly pattern really works. Hey Joe, I really caught the trout on a Bobs speacial last week. Hey Frank, I really did good on a goof ball in the same area of that river. Hey wait, thats the same fly I was using. Too many names, too many "I came up with it" going around. I know from looking at places like e-bay that some flies come up for sale and stay up. Others actually get sold. Yet others most people must think the same as I do, that looks like crap or I can make it for that price. I kida think it be easier to just call it as dry wet or streamer then describe what it is suppost to be. Dry Caddis fly. Streamer perch. Wet Stone Fly Nymph. Etc...

[BigCliff]

Dood, I hate to sound like the curmudgeonly old English teacher, but punctuation and spelling are kinda important.

It is true that lots of great flies are just pieces of other flies pasted together, but this really is an inevitability. There's only so many things that can be done on a hook with a 3/4" long shank and so many techniques to make feathers look like fish.

To really develop something that isn't just a re-arranging of other flies parts, you have to come up with new tying techniques. Good luck dood, it's tough.

[MrEsox]

just putting it out there. It just seams that, for example, the Clouser Minnow has been copied so many times but they all look the same. They'd all work the same and have the same way they are made. So what makes one better then the other. I know I got a few patterns that I've either seen one other on the web or not at all. But the others I got just dont need to be renamed just because I made them from copying some other pattern

[yatahey]

I think the fish decide.

[MrEsox]

ya you got that right. Some fur, some feathers, some shiny stuff, a fish may hit it.

[FlyRichardFly]

I tie all my flies also and I have come to believe in only 1 fly!!
Bob Clouser was one of the first to use the wonderful lead barbell eyes. When he tied the lead on the top of the shank, the streamer became weedless!! He put his name on everything with lead eyes!
A regular Clouser "stinks" in my opinion. It looks terrible in the water...... but I tie those wonderful lead eyes on my woolybuggers and on my rabbit fur buggers.
I've used a all marabou Clouser or a rabbit fur Clouser, but they are no where as good as a lead eye bugger.
It's fun to tie flies and you are correct that everyone wants to put their name on a modified woolybugger!!
Even with dry flies, the only ones that work well are a small woolybugger with dry fly hackle.
The great poppers are a woolybugger with some foam and rubber legs added!!
The popular Hare's Ear nymph is only a tiny woolybugger with a dub body!! A much better producer is a bugger the same size with tiny chenelle or a dub body.
Harry's Hellgramite is only a woolybugger with two rubber strips in front and peacock for a tail!!! I've tied some and I must say that the marabou works much better and the rubber in front only makes the fly twist!!
There....... a lifetime of testing flies and the woolybugger is by far the best!!
A lot of great flyguys only use woolybuggers and nothing else!! ......... me included!