I've tried my hardest but I just can't motivate myself to becoming a model insect builder.

The first dry fly I remember using to fool those frisky little native cutthroat was an Adams -- or was it a Royal Coachman? -- an American March Brown? Well, maybe I don't remember just exactly which pattern it was ( most likely it came from a Taiwanese blister-pack that proclaimed "Dry Fly Assortment" and included every dry fly the uninformed would ever need in their novice fly-fishing endeavors -- as long as the fish were partial to size 8 bait hooks, chenille bodies, size 6 brown barnyard hackles and bright red tails twice the length of the mutilated white quill wings that were attached every way except upright) it doesn't really matter. None of these patterns look like a living insect yet all of them have caught fish at one time or another.

If you have the necessary tools, the time and the skill, you can use the modern fly tying materials that are available today to construct a mayfly replica that is so realistic that most adult Pale Morning Duns would be proud to take one home to meet their folks.

This indeed is the Golden Age of fly tying. Never before have the materials and tools been available to tie such convincing models of aquatic insects. But I have one question to pose concerning these beautiful bogus bugs: What about the hook?

Such time and patience is spent making the extended bodies, the exact wings and those tiny legs; surely the motivation in all this is the theory that trout have an incredible eye for the smallest detail ... and they ignore the proportionally huge hook sticking out from the rear of these exact insect renditions.

I have yet to see a live March Brown, Pale Evening Dun or even an October Caddis flying around with a hook hanging down from its tail end. Maybe I'm just not looking close enough. But I sure as the devil would notice a large hook protruding out of a hamburger if I was eyeing it for a potential lunch. Considering the size of the hook in relation to the total size of the artificial fly, how can a fish not see it? Or, for that matter, how can they so easily ignore the hook eye, leader and knot when trying to decide if the wings are the proper size and shape?

Some would say that trout key in on certain aspects of the fly, like the silhouette of the wings and ignore everything else. This may be so but I'd still have to be pretty damned hungry to key in on the sesame seed bun and attack that hamburger with no regard for a giant metal hook and the attached rope that snakes off suspiciously into the kitchen.

It isn't fair to compare my fast and greasy eating habits to those of a fish. Afterall, I am supposed to be just a bit more intelligent than a fish -- at least I'm supposed to be. And I guess that's the point. Fish do not respond to food in the same manner as we do. No one is really sure what a fish sees and what provokes it into striking.

Sure, there are lots of theories and books written on the process and most sound downright possible, but there are still times when you can cast every theory you have in your vest to dozens of rising trout and still have no takers. Maybe they are concerned with gobbling only March Browns with perfect wings or just maybe they could care less. Perhaps you should tie all of your mayflies with extended bodies and perhaps it's a waste of time. Maybe we don't have to be so concerned with exactness when tying dry flies.

Which brings to mind a situation that really drives me crazy.

When it comes to dry-fly fishing, a good friend of mine has spent the last 10 years out-fishing me with a consistency that I finally had to admit (but only after the 9th year) wasn't due to the dumb luck that I've begrudgingly tried to convince him was responsible. I may catch a few 10-inch planters and feel very proud of myself for accomplishing the difficult casts required to fool the hatchery jobs -- like casting the fly onto the water instead of into the trees -- only to find later my friend has landed a half-dozen 15-inch native brown trout while I was climbing Douglas firs. This friend will go unnamed because there would be no living with him if I validate in print what he's claimed verbally for every one of those 10 years. Besides, Milton knows who he is.

The fact that he out-fishes me with a floating fly isn't what makes me so mad that I could boot bunnies. I'm by no means an olympic class angler bent on turning fly-fishing into a competitive sport. Far from it. The part that drives me nutty is his oblivious attitude toward tying those very patterns he uses to out-fish me.
It is true this man was tying his own flies when I was still buying "Dry Fly Assortment" packs and it is also true he's used a dry fly much longer than I -- primarily due to an age discrepancy -- but it's no brag for me to claim that my traditional dry flies are tied much truer to the original recipe of the pattern than his. I work hard to make the tails twice the hook shank length. I agonize to dub a tapered body. I scrutinize each hackle and only use the ones that will extend a hook gap and a half when wound around the shank. I also try to tie the wings somewhat in an upright configuration and strive to use materials that are in the same color range as the tying instructions prescribe .

Milt isn't concerned with any of this.

He's also color blind.

I keep forgetting that fact.

I can't forget, however, one trip in which Milt was gleefully hooking one trout after another with a minuscule dry fly while the rest of us weren't doing much more than whipping the water to a froth. I had tried every theory in my vest to no avail before finally giving in. I demanded to know what he was using. A size 18 traditional Adams was his answer. Strange, I thought, I could have sworn I tried that one in all the other theories but I searched my fly box, found a fresh one and tied it on. As I held it in my hand I marveled how well I had tied the fly. Then I tossed it to the winds and started to cast.

After flogging the water for another fruitless 15 minutes -- while Milt continued to catch fish after fish -- it occurred to me that his Adams may not be tied the same as mine. I threatened his life as he unhooked another 16-inch rainbow so he handed me the fly that was working.

It did have a hook. That was about the only thing it had in common with an Adams. The stubby tail was made out of something I couldn't decipher, the body was black floss, the hackle was oversized grizzly and one wing was gone.

"For crying out loud, Milt! This isn't an Adams!"

"Sure it is. The fish chewed it up pretty good but it started out as an Adams."

"An Adams doesn't have a black body. An Adams has a grey body dubbed with fur, brown and grizzly hackles and two grizzly tips for a wings. This fly has no brown hackles, a black floss body, only one wing and I don't have any idea what you used for the tail!"

"I ran out of brown hackles so I didn't use any. And that IS a grey body and I always use floss. Besides, it did have two wings before the fish chewed one of them off. And I'm not really sure what I did use for the tail."

I wasn't making any progress with my argument. He was convinced the pattern was an Adams because that is what he set out to tie when he sat down at his vise. Obviously a lack of materials required that he improvise, but the name stayed the same.

I searched and searched but couldn't find one black-bodied, single-winged, grizzly-only Adams with an undefinable tail in any of my boxes of theories and I was much too proud to ask Milt for one of his. Consequently, I didn't hook a single fish that day but at least my Adams were tied correctly.

The long and short of all this isn't the fact that I'm just a lousy dry-fly fisherman -- regardless of the evidence. There have been many fishing trips that included excellent fly tiers, excellent fly casters and even book and magazine article authors and creators of theories that have witnessed this "ugly Adams" phenomenon. If a good case against tying model insects were ever to be made, Milt's continual success with his dry fly patterns is that case. He explains why his flies work so well when the rest of our "perfectly tied" patterns fail miserably: "I tie my flies for the fish, not for the fisherman."

Well, in the Golden Age of fly tying, that certainly is a novel approach. Can it be that model insect patterns with realistic burned quill wings, extended bodies and micro-thin tails may look fantastically genuine to us, the fly anglers, but not the least bit consumable to them, the fish? Is it possible I spent all those hours with clinched teeth, strained eyes and a stiff drink just to clip a tapered deerhair body on my size 14 Irresistible is more impressive to my fellow fly tiers than to a hungry trout?

Maybe so.

It comes down to this. If you have the time, the materials and the necessary skills, go ahead and tie those beautiful model insect patterns. I will always be in awe of your amazing abilities and jealous that I can not do as well. If, on the other hand, you don't want to invest the time required to tie a 15-step, extended body replica and you're just not picky enough to turn out ideally proportioned traditional flies, don't be concerned in the least. You may very well be constructing an insect imitation that looks just exactly like a New York Steak to a famished fish -- even if it does look like meat loaf to us.