PF 2015

To all my fishing friends and acquaitances: keep your lines wet, flies dry and angling stories plausible for the whole 2015 fishing season!

Redheaded F-fly

A prominent red head on an othervise drab fly has a strange appeal to fish, and thus to the fisherman. I can't tell the exact reason, but I don't need to know it to make use of it in my tying.

This fly I created with autumn stoneflies in mind. On many rivers that I fish a hatch of needle flies appears in early October, overlapping the better known Baetis hatch. The Baetis are reliable fish catchers, and a #18 Olive quill is during the month of October a low risk choice, but sometimes a more substantial imitation of the larger needle flies yields better results.

The tie:
#16 Hanák H130 BL hook
tan elastic tying thread
Gütermann mirage tinsel ribbing
red fox dubbing
2 tips of CDC feather
a prominent head from Danville's 70 dernier red thread

Mr. Skues rocks!

For a little project of mine I have been re-reading some writings of George Edward Mackenzie Skues. I came across a little gem I simply have to share:

The imitation may be Impressionist, Cubist, Futurist, Post-Impressionist, Pre-Raphaelite, or caricature. The commonest is caricature. It therefore catches the most fish.

The old bloke had a fine grasp not only of visual art, but also of the ways of the fish and fishermen.

The Witch

Toil and grow rich,

That is a life on bent knees

Tis better to tie a Grayling Witch

And do as one please...

The Grayling Witch, a variant on the old Red Tag theme. A reliable performer on dry fly situations during the grayling season.

With my humble apologies to William Butler Yeats.

One Uhorčík to rule them all...

It is difficult to design a fly that would work as a silver bullet - reliably catch fish, each and every time. In fact, the difficulty is one of the main appeals of fly tying. Perfection can (and should!) be sought, but can never be quite reached...

A fly that brought me close on the road to the ultimate killer fly is the Uhorčík. The mix of chartreuse hotspot, highly mobile hair collar and deep diving tungsten bead seems to hit the spot.

The only difference in dressing I have made over the last couple seasons is that I stopped using gold beads, as they seem to be overused and thus loosing their edge.