"Hell, give me Greenwell's Glory, and Campbells Fancy and Beaverkill, all wet and about size 12 and May on the big river, and anyone else can have whatever he wants". - Sparse Grey Hackle writing about the Beaverkill River and it's older flies
It's early May and the Zebra Caddis are everywhere except you will not find many on the water surface but in bushes along the river. They crawl to the streamside by the thousands to do their mating dance and with so many flying , usually after we shake the bushes around, we think surface action will be great but mostly it's not. At this point it's a wet fly game!!
My Wet Caddis - This is Simple
A size 14 or 12 hook (I like 12, 16 works too
Black thread (your size)
Tie in 2 peacock herls and wind on for the body
Take one grouse hackle feather and, without stripping the fluff from the base of the feather, wind two turns up and then secure.
The fluff will make the best wing/leg presentation possible.
Yes, it's freezing out BUT only 3 months to go unless you're a freezout nut!!!
Ken
7 comments:
Dear Ken,
You have excellent taste in classic trout flies. As I'm sure you know, this is a 'Gray Hackle' (AKA 'Gray Hackle Peacock'). At times it's tied with a red hackle tail, more often without; sometimes a tinsel rib is added, more often not.
In her 1892 book Favorite Flies and Their Histories, Mary Orvis Marbury lauds the efficacy of this pattern and its sibling the Brown Hackle. Both patterns date to the 1700s, and were favorites of the majority of Marbury's two hundred correspondents who contributed to her book. She quotes angler L.B. France who stated "It is well to have in your fly book a little of everything, but of Gray and Brown Hackles ... an abundance."
The Brown Hackle was the very first pattern I mastered as a sixteen-year-old novice tyer. Fifty-four years later I still tie this fly, with which I have caught panfish, smallmouth bass, grayling, landlocked salmon, arctic char, and most North American species of trout.
-Mike
Mike,
I've always stayed clear of that red tailed fly!! I know of a beaver pond where it may work....
Sometimes I tie a bunch of peacock and starling wets because that starling hackle has just the right amount of brown in it to fool a trout into thinking it's a zebra caddis. At least it fools me!!!!!
Ken
Dear Ken,
Although my 1965 edition of the Noll Guide to Trout Flies insisted on a tail of "red wool or floss", from the start I have tied Brown Hackles with only four ingredients: hook, black thread, peacock herl, and furnace brown hackle. Only later did I learn that the tailless version of this pattern was preferred, as shown on the very first illustrated plate of Marbury's book.
For flies size 18 and smaller, in lieu of furnace brown hackle I substitute starling, thereby tying the 'Starling and Herl' (AKA 'Starling and Peacock', 'Peacock and Starling', etc.) - another centuries-old classic trout fly, and a great imitation of the many small dark caddis species.
-Mike
Mike,
The starling feather is such a great material especially on the small flies. It's also very fragile and takes some time dealing with that shortcoming which may be why you don't see too much of it being used by modern tyers. NOTE: My word checker says that "tyer" is the dated form or "tier". I refuse to believe that!!!
Ken
That will surely be on my fly tying bench this winter--in all 3 sizes.
Charles
Dear Ken,
Three years ago I published an article on the American Museum of Fly Fishing website which included the word tyer in its introduction. The AMFF editor and I had a cordial discussion about the merits of tyer vs. tier, in which she explained that their journal uses only tier despite its two separate definitions.
I acquiesced and my article was published with tier as its sole revision, but I agree with you that tyer is the better word for 'one who ties flies'.
-Mike
Mike,
Or we can compromise and call that person a FLY TIRE!!
Ken
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