We here at Trickflies.ca tend to fish dry flies most of the time and tend to find success with a wide variety of dry flies in Western Canada. We felt it was a good idea to compile a list of our favourite dry fly fishing flies for Canadian waters and how/when we fish them.

Every fly fisher has their go to fly, that one fly that always seems to find its way on to the end of their leader. For us it has to be the Elk Hair Caddis. Whenever we go to any stream it seems to be what we always start with unless there is an obvious hatch. One of our more popular dry flies the Elk Hair Caddis comes in a wide variety of sizes and colours but we usually like to start with a size 16 or 18 in our brown or yellow varieties. When it comes time to get the fly in the water, we apply a little bit of floatant and drift it as drag free as possible. We tend to find that this fly best imitates a falling caddis with a slight slap on the surface upon landing. My brown trout at our local stream have also been taken on the swing, let the fly extend straight downstream before recasting.

Our most popular dry fly is that for a reason, it catches tons of trout. Anytime there is an mayfly hatch this is usually the one we go to. The exception is when we are in choppy water and need a little more buoyancy to keep the fly on the surface, then the Humpy Adams is our go to. What makes our Parachute Adams so amazing is the white "parachute" on the top of the fly making this a very visible dry fly to fish with. Even in our smallest sizes it can often be seen at full cast. Once again, a little floatant will keep it riding high and staying dry. This fly is the current Trickflies.ca record holder for Arctic Grayling.

Our local stream Prairie Creek, always has tons of dried up stonefly shucks on its rocky shores. For that reason we started carrying quite a number and variety of Stimulators when fly fishing in Western Canada. Not only do they do an amazing job of imitating stoneflies, but also work well as an attractor pattern. Maybe it's the large size or how bushy the Stimulators look but trout seem to go nuts for them. Stimulators tend to split duty with our next fly as the top "indicator"  fly in our dropper set ups, in this case the indicator catches more than the dropper. We carry many colour and size variations both in store and in our boxes.

Whats our absolute favourite dry fly fishing fly? Our Foam Hoppers of course. As the current Trickflies.ca record holder for Cutthroat Trout we always have at least 4 of each size and colour variation in our boxes. Often seen as an easy meal, hoppers hit the surface with a splash and are helpless once they do. We like to drift it to a rising fish and just as it floats into the strike zone give it a little twitch to add some life and entice a strike. Often times if we encounter a picky fish that wont take anything we offer, a Foam Hopper gets the job done. Also a favourite dry fly for the hopper/dropper set up.

There were are few dry flies up for the final spot but it was decided that it should go to the Griffiths Gnat. When the hatching bugs are small and there is a lot of surface film the Griffith Gnat is our go to fly. The Griffiths Gnat is a fly fishing fly that has caught fish all over Western Canada, in a wide variety of streams. It is really the only fly we fish foam with and have had great success in doing so,

Not only are our Top 5 Must Have Dry Flies our favourites for fly fishing in Western Canada but are proven by fly fishers worldwide. Try them on your local stream and see the results.