Tater, I see those guys with thermometers, too- and little nets to catch a fly on the surface and examine it. Some of those guys can give you the Latin name of the insect....
JMO here, after fly fishing for a few years (ok, a few decades
): don't let all that 'baffle 'em with BS' stuff worry you. Fly fishing is actually very simple: put a fly that looks like something natural to that body of water near a fish that wants to eat, you catch fish.
I think there's more extraneous BS attached to fly fishing than any other kind of fishing, especially since fly fishing became the Yuppy religion.
Beadheads work well, as they have a little weight to make them sink. Another good source of weight to get a nymph down is the foil that comes off wine bottles (the kind with corks)
. Cut that metal foil into thin strips and wrap it around your leader- if you put the foil just above a knot, it'll stay in place nicely.