All tied fishing flies, no matter how great of a representation they are of the fly tier's art, or how scruffy they look, will at some time or another catch a fish. The regularity that they do so is the crux of the matter at the end of the day. Even a bare hook can be used to deceive a fish at times! If you form a more generalized view of food forms available to the fish, and those that the fish is more likely to see on a regular daily basis, and couple that with artificial items fished in the correct manner, then you will almost certainly catch a great many fish.
There are, of course, times that various food forms are more abundant such as specific hatches, terrestrials, and so on, that it makes sense to fish such fly patterns that represent those food forms at that time, though not always. Take a look at this scenario. If, for example, you well know that a large abundance of scuds exist in a given body of water, then it makes sense to fish an artificial that represent this food source. A bright pink yellow scud is by no means a representation of a natural, as those colors do not exist in naturals, but they may well catch you fish. As a general rule of thumb artificial of this kind will have a very inconsistent rate of success. 184 l August 2016 l Southern Trout l www.SouthernTrout.com