Five Flies with Jesse Lance Robbins
The author of the newly-released "The Best Fly Fishing is Everywhere" gives us a glimpse into his fly fishing practice, through the lens of Five Flies
I read a lot of fly fishing books. Jesse Lance Robbins' "The Best Fly Fishing is Everywhere" is my favorite so far of 2026.
A former guide turned industry fixture, Robbins now ranges near the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers in Oregon, working in fundraising at Trout Unlimited. The book is a compilation of stories previously published in top tier fly fishing print and media, along with around a dozen new essays, vignettes, and sketches chronicling angling pursuits.
What I like about the book is it's unpretentious, open-minded, and honest. The bad days are recognized with the good. The destination stories feel accessible, unlike a lot of the popular private-jet-set, style-over-substance narratives. And the titular theme weaves it all together: The best fly fishing is where you are, now, present, in the water.
You can pick up "The Best Fly Fishing is Everywhere," published by Hatherleigh Press, at Bookshop.org, order a copy signed by Jesse from Eugene's Caddis Fly Shop, or find it wherever books are sold.
Jesse and I caught up on the phone a couple weeks ago and had a broad ranging chat on home waters, one fly tourneys, brook trout, and much more. Our conversation here has been edited for length and clarity.
Just like the notion anchoring his book—the best fly fishing is everywhere—Jesse's must-have selections are simple, dependable patterns. You don't need a massive breadth of flies to be in the game.
1: First fly
What was the first fly you fished, or tied? What made it special?
JLR: It was a Mickey Finn. I grew up in Maine. Behind the house where I grew up, there's a little river called the St. George River. I spent a lot of time there fishing by myself and with my dad.
The Mickey Finn is a well-known and not-infrequently-used streamer pattern back there. When I was eight or so, our neighbor—who is a fishing buddy of my father's and just a lifelong family friend—gifted me a fly-tying kit. That kit had the materials and instructions to tie one streamer, one nymph, one dry fly, that sort of thing. It's a great one to learn to tie because it's pretty straightforward.
2: Favorite fly
All other things being equal, what would you most prefer to fish?
JLR: I hope this isn't too lame, but I'm gonna say a Parachute Adams. Maybe a size 16. Because that means I'm dry fly fishing, and there's some bugs around. Presumably I'm fishing to rising fish or looking for rising fish.
If I'm gonna fish for one species only, I would have to choose trout. And if I'm gonna fish for trout, I would wanna do it with a dry fly. It just works anywhere. It's simple, and I like that. It's a good enough fly that a good angler can make it work anywhere. You can't blame the fly if you can't get them on a Parachute Adams.
"You can't blame the fly if you can't get them on a Parachute Adams."
3: Confidence fly:
Where in your box do you go when you really need to bust a slump?
JLR: I'll stick with trout here to keep things apples-to-apples, but there's a nymph called a 20 Incher It's a stone fly nymph, but has got peacock herl and some like hare's ear colors in there. And yeah, I'm pretty confident fishing that fly if I'm gonna fish anything subsurface. If you're gonna fish one size, I might say 12, but I'll fish it from like six to 16 if you can find them in those sizes.
Honestly, the Parachute Adams and the 20 Incher are the flies I use the most. Despite having several thousand trout flies, I am very often fishing one of those two flies.
"Despite having several thousand trout flies, I am very often fishing one of those two flies."
4: Forbidden fly
What fly or flies are you against, or wanting to stay away from?
JLR: These days, personally, I stay away from eggs and worms when it comes to trout. I tend to stay with natural materials. I'll supplement those, but I try to keep my flies mostly natural.
Most of the flies I tie these days are steelhead or salmon patterns, and my materials for those are pretty simple. And there's a few trout flies that I'll tie because I like to tie them a certain way or certain in colors or things like that.
My fly selection is pretty simple these days. How many fly patterns today are essentially a glorified Wooly Bugger, or some version of a Parachute Adams? I think it just goes to show your fly selection, really if you boil it down, it can be categorized into a small handful of patterns.
5: Won't-fish-again fly
What flies have you sent to the hall-of-fame for sentimental reasons? What's in your hatband, or the headliner of your rig?
JLR: I like to retire flies that have caught meaningful fish. I'm looking at some on my desk right now. Here's a fly that I tied and fished. I didn't hook anything, and it bent out, which is why I retired it. But it's an Ally's Shrimp, an Atlantic salmon pattern that I fished in Scotland. And it's next to a crab pattern that I fed to—but didn't hook—a permit in the Bahamas. And then there's a summer steelhead fly that I caught a king with unintentionally on the Willamette. And then there's a bonefish fly here and a carp fly. Oh, and then some funny New Zealand terrestrial that I don't know how I ended up here, but I decided I didn't wanna lose it.
I'm saving all of these flies because I've got this really cool piece of driftwood that I want to hang, and stick them all in to make a more permanent display. The challenge is remembering why you retired them all.
The other thing just sitting on my laptop stand, I've got these two pebbles arranged as a two-stone cairn. I pulled these little rocks from the gravel bar on the river by Zane Gray's cabin on the Rogue. I don't think anyone would be missing these two stones, but that was a little bit of writing inspiration. A little bit of the mojo rubbing off.
Thanks, Jesse!
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Pick up a copy of "The Best Fly Fishing is Everywhere" and let us know how you like it!
