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| Brown Allgrouse |
Tying local.
When Colonel Carey migrated
from England to British Columbia , some say, seeking the perfect trout
fly, a grail of sorts, did he bring a box of North Country
spiders with him? Did he bring requisite materials from the Isle of Tradition? Perhaps
we’ll never know. What we do know is, his ultimate expression, the Monkey-Faced
Louise (eventually the Carey Special) may be the largest sized North Country spider of all time, the original built
entirely of the indigenous materials Carey found in B.C.
When we first arrived beside
the Columbia River in NE Washington in the early 1970’s (fairly close to the B.C.
lake country where Colonel Carey sought his grail), we were a young family, an
hour’s drive from town, building a homestead, raising livestock, operating a
reforestation business, & there was very little in the budget for fly tying
materials save for essentials like thread, hooks & wire. Yet I lacked for
nothing, the homestead, neighborhood (& neighbors), my wife’s knitting
& sewing baskets, providing a mind-spaghettiing array of supplies. Moose,
elk, deer, bear, raccoon, skunk, coyote, muskrat, beaver, lovely pine
squirrels, rabbit, turkey, pheasant, waterfowl of all kinds, starling, suicidal
(window banger) songbirds of many useful types, ruffed grouse, & of course
domestic chickens, all you wanted – the list of critters the river, woods &
roads provided is too long to print here.
Material combinations were
only limited by imagination.
And I had my books, among
them, Leisenring, Brooks, Skues & some of the earlier British writers,
& these were both inspirational & informative, teaching methods &
mixes of materials to create flies that were rarely seen in 1970’s Western fly
boxes. These old books & methods were actually freeing. So I tied my flies
of native materials & the native trout of my home water enjoyed &
appreciated them. I think of those days as my indigenous (nativist) period, &
my trouting game has never been better than it was in those times.
Of all the materials available,
ruffed grouse was & is my favorite. For usefulness, I’d give it equal
billing with ringneck pheasant. Tail, wings & every part of the ruffed
grouse’s anatomy provides feathers useful to the soft-hackler. The Allgrouse is
a pattern I started tying in the 70’s that I still consider one of the most
killing in my box. I tie these with brown phase & gray phase ruffed grouse,
resulting in two versions, an overall brown, & a gray version. Together, in
sizes #12 to #16, these will cover a lot of mayfly species.
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| Gray & brown phase ruffed grouse tail feathers |
Dressing:
Allgrouse
Hook: #12-#16
Thread: primrose yellow
Pearsall’s Gossamer Silk
Hackle: ruffed grouse body
feather or wing shoulder covert
Tailing: 3 ruffed grouse tail
fibers
Abdomen: ruffed grouse tail
fibers twisted with a single strand of pearl krystal flash & the tag of the
tying silk (original was without krystal flash & reverse wound with fine
wire)
Thorax: ruffed grouse tail
fibers taken from the bronze band near the tip of the tail feather
