Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity. -Lao Tzu
I have searched high and low for the holy grail of fly fishing for over 30 years, in books, guides, flies, articles, and every place imaginable. I have found many soothsayers, naysayers, potion sellers, tricksters, hucksters, and a few people who had forgotten more than the others had managed to remember. Starting with the Dame, and passing through Skues, Halford, Sawyer, Kite, Best, Gierach, and taking us all the way to modern day, I have now read them all, every book that I could find in print, or out of print, on fly fishing. And I have tried to meet as many of the people in real life as well, on this side of the pond and across it.
There’s an interesting saying that a guru horse trainer of mine, Wilson Dennehy says, ” less than 10 percent of the people know 90 percent of the available information in the world.” By that he means, there are very few experts who really know everything there is to know about a subject.
Here’s some of the things I have found along the way to finding a guru of fly fishing. Most of them helpful friends along the way leading their own way on paths to the top of the same mountain, but many others (not depicted) were distracting from the true purpose.
AK Best tied flied
Pat Dorsey Top Secret midge material 
Frank Sawyer flies given to me by Nick Sawyer 
Lots of fakes before I found the real Chadwicks 477 wool for Killer Bugs 
And, here’s what I have discovered. I have gone from over 1,000 fly patterns in my fly boxes to just three.
These three flies, the RS2 as tied by Rim Chung, the Yong Special as tied by Andy Kim, and the Pheasant Tail, as tied by the late Frank Sawyer, in a few sizes and colors will catch more fish, if not as many, than all of the other patterns combined—if fished with the best technique possible, which these three men have perfected in strikingly similar ways. Therefore, it is much more important as to how the fly is presented, making it presented as naturally as possible, than in selecting the fly itself.
GEM Skues flies given to me by his grandson 
