I hear ya Mike, but I’m not artistic enough to tie flies, be nice if I could, be great way to spend the looooooooooong cold winters. But I'll be buying most of my streamers, expensive (ugh) but they are works of art and catch big fish..
I often wonder why I keep all my spoons, one of these days I think I will get rid of any spoon that will not troll well at 2.5 to 3, and that could be 100's including all those Fishlander Glows I collected.
Not sure if it’s the flies, G2’s, Rod Pumpers, etc. combination of em all, or just the way it goes. But the past two years we catch much bigger fish, maybe not more, but "consistently" bigger fish and we have only caught 3 yearling Salmon this year, not a one since May. A well respected guide/fisherman we all know, told me it’s because we use 99% streamers that we don’t catch many yearlings, but we never catch many in Squam ???????
Streamers look so much more like the real thing and big fish are hard to fool.
Seems each year I change my style, Suttons one year, DB's/BB Guns and Guide Specials another, glows the next, etc, etc. But the past two years it's been almost exclusivley streamers and I don't see myself changing next year..