The Best Flies for Trout

The best flies for trout, for anyone buying their first box, are the BASSDASH 64-piece assortment plus a pack of Woolly Buggers — together they cover a season of creek fishing for less than the cost of two dozen shop-tied flies. Wild stream trout are not inspecting your thread wraps, so the right fly fishing flies are the ones that cover the right sizes at the right depth, which is what this page ranks them on.

How we picked these

We compared published fly count, the categories covered (dry, nymph, streamer, terrestrial), hook sizes, tying method and whether a box is included — judged against a first season on creeks and small streams where fish are wild, opportunistic and mostly under twelve inches. We weighted category breadth and small hook sizes over count, and we treated an included waterproof box as genuine value rather than packaging. We do not fish-test every assortment and do not claim to; our method is on the how we research and pick page, and prices here are live and dated.

The six fly fishing flies that cover a season

Fly shops sell thousands of patterns. Creek trout in North America are covered by six, in two sizes each. If an assortment contains these, it is good enough.

If you only fish two, fish a bead-head nymph and a Woolly Bugger. Between them they cover subsurface feeding and predatory fish, which is the great majority of creek trout behavior. Dry flies are more fun and often easier on small streams — creek trout are opportunists looking up — but they are not where most fish are caught. The subsurface half of the box is covered in detail in the best nymphs for trout.

Size matters more than pattern

This is the single most useful thing on this page. The most common correction an experienced angler makes to a beginner’s fly box is to drop two hook sizes.

Fly hooks run backwards: a bigger number is a smaller hook. A size 18 is small, a size 8 is large. Beginners consistently buy too large, because larger flies are easier to see, easier to tie on, and look more like something a fish would want. But the insects in a creek are genuinely tiny, and a trout that has refused a size 12 will frequently take the same pattern in a size 18 on the next cast.

So: carry nymphs and dries in 14 to 18, and when fish refuse, go smaller before you change pattern. It is the highest-percentage adjustment in trout fishing, and it costs nothing. Every size range worth owning, by fly type, is laid out in what size flies to use for trout.

Depth is the other half

Trout hold low. They feed in the bottom third of the water column far more than at the surface, because that is where food is carried. Beginners fish too shallow and conclude the flies are wrong.

If you are not occasionally ticking the streambed with a nymph, you are fishing above the fish. The fix is not a different pattern — it is weight. Either use a bead-head version, add a small split shot a foot above the fly, or fish a heavier nymph with a lighter one tied behind it. Then watch for the drift to pause or hesitate, which is what a take looks like on a nymph.

And drag kills more drifts than pattern ever will. A fly being pulled across the current by your line looks wrong to a trout and it will not take it, regardless of what the fly is. Short casts, a high rod tip, and getting closer to the fish — which small water lets you do — solve drag better than anything you can buy. A strike indicator helps you both detect takes and see when your drift is dragging.

The best trout flies for beginners: a six-pattern starter box

If this is your first box, you do not need more patterns — you need the right six in two sizes each. That is twelve slots, under twenty dollars of flies, and it will out-fish a hundred-fly box bought at random. Tie on a Woolly Bugger when you do not know what is happening, swap to a beadhead nymph when fish are holding deep, and keep one dry fly on hand for the last hour of light. Everything else in this guide is an upgrade on that core.

The practical beginner shortcut is to buy a prebuilt box rather than twelve individual packs: an assortment covers the categories and sizes in one purchase, and it costs less than buying the same flies loose. That is the whole case for a best fly fishing flies kit over a shopping list — and the next section is about whether the cheap ones hold up.

Is a cheap fly fishing flies kit good enough?

For creek trout, genuinely yes — with one caveat. Wild stream fish in small water are opportunistic and competitive; they are not the educated, heavily fished trout of a famous tailwater that refuse anything imperfect. A $17 assortment catches them.

The caveat is hooks. Budget assortments economize on hook steel and points, and the consequence shows up in two places: points that dull or bend after a couple of fish, and larger patterns where a soft hook can straighten under load. The practical workaround is to check and sharpen points and accept that you will retire flies faster. When you know fly fishing has stuck, the hand-tied assortment is the upgrade worth making, and the difference is almost entirely in the hooks.

The other honest weakness: assortments contain patterns nobody uses, so a 64-fly box is realistically a 25-fly box. That is still good value, and pairing an assortment with one deliberately chosen pattern — Woolly Buggers — covers the gap.

Storing them so they last

Flies are destroyed by being put away wet far more often than by fish. A used fly goes back into a closed foam box damp, the hook rusts, and the hackle on a dry fly is crushed flat and never floats again.

Two habits fix it. Keep a small patch of foam or wool on the outside of your pack and park used flies there to dry during the session, then transfer them home. And open the box to air when you get back rather than leaving it sealed in a bag.

A waterproof, slit-foam box is worth the small premium — it keeps water out, holds small hooks securely without crushing hackle, and lets you see everything at once. One box of nymphs and dries plus a few streamers in a second compartment covers a creek day, and it all fits in a shirt pocket.

Also carry floatant if you fish dries, which is a gel or powder that keeps a fly riding high after it has been sunk by a fish or a bad drift. A dry fly that has absorbed water fishes as a bad wet fly.

Next: a rod to cast them with, waders, and a rubber net. If you fish spinning gear instead, the creek lures roundup is the equivalent page, and the beginner gear guide puts the whole kit in order.

Where to go from here. If your water also holds smallmouth or panfish — and most creeks do, a mile or two downstream — see the best flies for bass and the best flies for bluegill; bluegill in particular are the fastest way to improve a fly cast. For winter, when the rivers are cold and you want the exact small sizes nobody sells, the best fly tying kit for beginners covers tying your own. And if you fish spinning tackle as well as flies, the best trout lures is the equivalent page.

Three follow-on pages narrow this down further. Species changes the answer more than most anglers expect: flies for brook trout are smaller and simpler, while flies for rainbow trout lean on nymphs, eggs and worm patterns. And if cost is the constraint, the cheap flies guide works out what the saving actually costs you per fish. By fly type, the detail pages are the best dry flies for trout and the best streamers for trout.