When I go to a new stream I tie on a bead head gold ribbed hares ear for starters, then if that does not work I will move to the scuds, then a prince nymph or pheasant tail. If I see action near the surface I will tie on an attractor say size 14 and an emerger on the dropper and use the attractor as a strike/drift indicator. As you can tell I do very little pure dry fly fishing