Flies & Fly Tying
Best Dry Flies for Trout
Four patterns cover almost every rise you will see in your first season. Here they are, and what to buy them in.
Dry fly fishing is why most people take up fly fishing: a visible fly, a visible fish, and the rise. It is also the easiest type of fly fishing to learn, because you can see everything that happens — which is why it is worth having a handful of good dries even though nymphs catch more trout.
You do not need to match a hatch to catch fish on a dry fly. You need a fly of roughly the right size, roughly the right color, drifting without drag. Size and drift matter far more than pattern.
The short list
| # | Pick | Best for | Score | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Orvis Essential Trout Dries AssortmentDry flies onlyBest Overall | A curated dries-only box, which is exactly what this page is about | 7.4 | Check price on Amazon |
| 2 | Orvis Essential Trout Fly SelectionPre-packaged assortmentBest Starter Kit | Dries plus nymphs, if this is your only fly purchase | 7.8 | Check price on Amazon |
| 3 | Umpqua UPG Ultimate Trout Selection78 patterns · box includedBest Upgrade Pick | Seventy-eight patterns, box included, once you fish often | 7.8 | Check price on Amazon |
1. Best Overall
Orvis Essential Trout Dries Assortment
The assortment to buy for the learning, not the catch rate — a visible fly teaches you drift better than anything else.
| Spec | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Dry-fly-only pre-packaged assortment |
There is an argument for buying dry flies first that has nothing to do with catching more fish: you can see them. Watching your own dry fly drag across the current, and watching the drag disappear when you get the cast right, teaches you more about presentation in an afternoon than a season of nymphing will.
Orvis's Essential Trout Dries assortment is the pre-packed version. It will not catch as much as a nymph box, because trout do not look up most of the time, and that is the honest trade.
Pair it with a floatant and expect to change flies more than you think — a drowned dry fly is a wet nymph nobody designed.
What we like
- Dry-fly fishing is the most instructive way to learn, because you can see exactly what your fly is doing
- A visible fly means you learn about drag and drift far faster than you would nymphing
What you give up
- Dries only work when fish are looking up, which is a minority of any season
- Small dries are fiddly to tie on in low light
| Criterion | Score / 10 |
|---|---|
| Pattern choice | 8 |
| Hook quality | 9 |
| Beginner value | 7 |
| Local relevance | 5 |
| Value | 7 |
| Overall | 7.4 |
2. Best Starter Kit
Orvis Essential Trout Fly Selection
The right first fly purchase if you do not have a local shop to ask — a curated set rather than a hundred random flies.
| Spec | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Pre-packaged trout fly assortment |
| Packaging | Sized to slip into a wader pocket or sling pack |
| Related sets | Essential Trout Dries and Essential Trout Nymph assortments sold separately |
The hardest part of buying your first flies is that the question has no general answer: the right fly depends on your river, the month and what is hatching. Faced with that, most beginners buy a hundred-fly bulk assortment, and most of those flies never get fished.
A curated assortment is the better compromise. Orvis's Essential Trout Fly Selection is a pre-packaged set sized to live in a wader pocket, and Orvis also sells dries-only and nymph-only versions if you already know which style your water calls for.
The honest caveat, and we would rather say it than sell you flies: if there is a fly shop within driving distance, go in and ask. Local knowledge beats any national selection, and it costs you nothing.
What we like
- Removes the single most paralyzing decision a beginner faces, which is which flies to buy
- Covers dries and subsurface patterns rather than only one style
- Orvis hooks and tying quality are consistent, which matters because a bent hook point is invisible until you miss a fish
What you give up
- Generic across the country rather than matched to your local water
- Costs more per fly than buying a bulk assortment
| Criterion | Score / 10 |
|---|---|
| Pattern choice | 8 |
| Hook quality | 9 |
| Beginner value | 8 |
| Local relevance | 5 |
| Value | 7 |
| Overall | 7.8 |
3. Best Upgrade Pick
Umpqua UPG Ultimate Trout Selection
The box-plus-flies purchase that makes sense in your second season, not your first.
| Spec | Value |
|---|---|
| Patterns | 78 |
| Box | Supplied in an Umpqua fly box |
Umpqua is the company that ties a large share of what you see in fly shop bins, and the UPG Ultimate Trout Selection is their deep set: 78 patterns supplied in an Umpqua fly box. If you already know you are going to keep fishing, the per-fly cost and the included box make this better value than it first looks.
We would still not make it a first purchase. There is a specific learning curve in fly selection, and it runs through fishing a small number of patterns until you understand why one works and another does not. Owning 78 flies before you have fished 10 skips the part where you learn.
If you want the Umpqua depth matched to where you fish, their regional sets are the better route — the Southern Rockies selection comes as a 19-fly Deluxe or a 56-fly Guide version, and there is an Eastern Trout selection too.
What we like
- 78 patterns is genuinely a season's worth rather than a sampler
- The box is included, and an Umpqua box on its own is not cheap
- Umpqua ties commercially for fly shops, so the patterns are the ones shops actually sell
What you give up
- A big outlay for a first purchase
- Still a national selection, not a local one
- 78 patterns is a lot to learn; most beginners fish six of them
| Criterion | Score / 10 |
|---|---|
| Pattern choice | 9 |
| Hook quality | 9 |
| Beginner value | 6 |
| Local relevance | 6 |
| Value | 8 |
| Overall | 7.8 |
The four dry flies to carry
| Pattern | Sizes | Imitates | Why it earns a slot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parachute Adams | 14, 16, 18 | Generic mayfly | The most useful dry fly in America. The white post makes it visible in broken water |
| Elk Hair Caddis | 14, 16 | Caddis fly | Floats in rough water where a delicate mayfly pattern drowns. Evening fishing standard |
| Foam Ant or Beetle | 14, 16 | Terrestrial insect | Summer on small streams. Fish eat ants with total confidence and ants do not hatch, so timing does not matter |
| Stimulator or small hopper | 10, 12 | Stonefly or grasshopper | Visible, buoyant, and strong enough to carry a nymph on a dry-dropper |
That is four patterns in nine or ten flies. It will cover a rise on a spring creek, an evening caddis hatch, a July afternoon with ants blowing onto the water, and a dry-dropper rig on a fast riffle.
Size matters more than pattern
If trout are rising and refusing your fly, the first thing to change is size, and the direction is almost always smaller. A size 18 Adams catches fish that have just refused a 14. Color is the second thing to change, and pattern — switching from an Adams to something else entirely — is a distant third.
The exception is drag. A fly dragging across the current at a speed no insect could manage will be refused by every fish in the pool regardless of what it is. If you are being refused repeatedly, watch your fly rather than your box: nine times out of ten the problem is a line pulling the fly sideways.
Keeping a dry fly floating
- Treat it before you fish it, not after it sinks. A gel or liquid floatant applied to a dry fly works; applied to a wet one it makes a mess.
- Dry it when it gets slimed. After a fish, rinse and squeeze it in a cloth or an amadou patch, then re-treat. Fish slime is what sinks flies, not water.
- False-cast to shed water, two or three strokes, before dropping it back on the water.
- Carry a desiccant powder if you fish dries seriously. It revives a drowned fly in seconds and nothing else does.
Floatant and a drying patch belong on the what to carry on the water list for exactly this reason — a dry fly that will not float is not a dry fly.
When not to fish a dry fly
When nothing is rising. This sounds obvious and beginners still spend whole afternoons casting dries over water with no surface activity whatsoever, because the dry fly is the fun one.
If there are no rises, the fish are feeding below and you should be too — a nymph under an indicator, or the dry-dropper rig that lets you fish both at once. Cold water, high water and bright midday sun all push trout down.
Questions people actually ask
What is the best all-round dry fly for trout?
A Parachute Adams, size 16. It is a credible imitation of a generic mayfly almost anywhere in America, it floats well in moving water, and the white parachute post means you can actually see it — which decides whether you detect a take at all.
What size dry flies should a beginner buy?
14, 16 and 18. Size 16 is the workhorse. Below size 20 you cannot easily see the fly or thread the hook, and the frustration outweighs the extra fish, however real those fish are.
Why do trout refuse my dry fly?
Usually drag — the fly is moving across the current faster than a real insect could. Fix the drift before you change the fly. If the drift is clean and you are still refused, go one size smaller.
Do I need floatant for dry flies?
Yes, and apply it before the fly gets wet. The thing that sinks a dry fly is usually fish slime rather than water, so a drying patch or desiccant powder matters just as much as the floatant itself.
Where these figures come from
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