The Joys of Fly Swapping

Swapping flies is as old as fly tying. It probably started between ancient Greek folks fishing for fishes of a speckled hue on fabled Astraeus, but it was greatly improved with advent of the Internet.

I am a great fan of swapping flies, active on several internet forums. These couple of flies are for a swap on Czech site www.mrk.cz.

Having finished this bunch of tiny flees (#20 Eagle Owl mayflies) makes me think a bit on what is the most fun part of swaping. I have come up with several answers:

• The first and most obvious is that fly swaps let me see patterns and tricks of other fly tiers and learn from them.
• The second is that preparing for a swap makes me think hard about what pattern to select; it has to be something unusual to be interesting, and yet it has to be a pattern that I know well.
• The third is that tying dozens of identical flies is good for the soul of fly tier; it polishes the  techniques.
• And finally the fourth reason is that it builds relationship over the fly tying community.

Looking at my collection of some hundreds of labelled flies I wonder which of the four reasons matters the most to me. It will probably take some more fly swaps to fully understand :)

Scruffy Grayling Bug

A new pattern has been added to my Step by Step tying page: the Scruffy Grayling Bug.

This is a good pattern for the times when grayling do not consider it necessary to rise to the surface. But need not be considered exclusively a grayling pattern, as this little brownie attests.

Golden Olive Emergers

The weather seems to be taking a turn to the "worse" - the temperature has dropped, and after weeks of scorching heat we finally had some rain - which can mean only one thing: the summer is past, and the grayling season is coming!

Due to both past and forthcoming changes in my family arrangements I expect to spend somewhat fewer days fishing than I used to, but still I need to get ready for my favorite part of the fishing season.

Here are a couple emergers for grayling fishing. They are tied on a slightly heavier hooks and meant to be fished sunk in the film.

The tie:
#18 Dohiku 301 dry fly (somewhat heavier gauge than Hanák 103BL, my other favorite)
14/0 Sheer Thread color grey
3 strands of orange Krystal Flash to make my fly stand out in the crowd
body wrapped from goose herl dyed Golden Olive (Veniard)
2 tips of CDC feather