Happy New Year
“…We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet…”
Hope somebody gave you some
good sipping whiskey for Christmas, & that you haven’t made any overly
brash & severe New Year resolutions.
Though not old enough to
vote, the fine single-malt in the photo is as smooth as a dimpled glide, bearing
haunting tones of peat, seaweed & furrowed earth, with melancholic
undertones of dark moor, salmon water & the smoke of ancient battles.
Of course, one must be discerning. More than a wee dram may lead to shocking, salacious behavior.
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| Bill Shuck photo |
Leisenring’s Cow Dung ~
Bill Shuck
Don’t know where he got the
dung fly porn, & didn’t ask, yet the estimable Mr. Shuck arises presciently
on-cue with an instructional/inspirational follow-up to the above whiskey passages. Bill, we doff
our collective hat.
Not a very elegant fly? Hey it’s a dung fly.
Leisenring nailed the color
& texture of the dung fly; his version serving as a better imitation than the dark
olive, floss-body version common in fly bins not too many years ago. In the
early 70’s I used to fish a creek that meandered through several miles of
pasture abundantly mined with ‘meadow muffins’ loaded with dung flies. It was a
breezy place & a lot of the weak-flying poop-flies ended up in the water
& trout were used to seeing them. Being a severely indoctrinated Leisenring
disciple at the time, of course I tied & fished his version of the Cow Dung,
& it did turn the trick on that little meadow creek. And really, I believe that was the only place
I ever fished a Cow Dung with any success, certain that my fly was being taken for
the natural. Still, if you fish such a place, this is a worthwhile pattern.
Here’s Bill’s take on it:
Also, various dressings call
for body color ranging from lemon to green, with materials varying from worsted
(crewel) wool to peacock herl. This seeming discrepancy can be explained by the
fact that while the male dung fly common in Britain is a yellowish orange, the
female is a dull olive. There are also differences about the material to be
used for the wing, with at least one specifying dark mallard wing slips. I
attribute this to the fact that the wings of the dung fly are a color best
mimicked by slips from the secondary wing feathers of the landrail, a bird that
is today universally protected. (Until the starling was declared endangered in Britain and
placed on the protected list, Veniard used to sell starling wings dyed brown as
a credible sub for the landrail; even those are in short supply these days.)
I have relied pretty much on
Jim Leisenring’s version of the pattern as put forth in “The Art of Tying the
Wet Fly”:
Cow Dung
Hook: #12, #13 (I used a
Mustad 94840, Size #12)
Thread: Orange
silk
Hackle: Ginger similar to
body color
Body: Yellow crewel wool,
seal fur, or mohair mixed with a little brown fur to … give the whole a dirty orange
tinge (I used a blend of 85% yellow wool, 10% medium orange seal, and 5% medium
brown Aussie possum)
Wings: Landrail (slips)
slightly longer than body sloping back close over body with glossy side out (I
used Veniard dyed brown starling as sub) ~Bill Shuck
The Tying Of The Flies
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| #18 Greenwells ~Steven Bird |
“We fish for pleasure, I for mine, & you for
yours.” ~James Leisenring
Angling writers are fond of
creating dichotomy. Dryfly versus Wetfly, for example. You guys who’ve been
around awhile may remember the famous Halford versus Skues ‘debate’, which
outdoor magazine writers riffed off of for decades. There were even
reenactments of the famous showdown. Trueblood versus Laycock, in Field & Stream, is one I recall
reading when I was a kid. And more recently the Presentation versus Fly Choice
debate. Somebody says: “Presentation is everything.” And somebody else says:
“Sure. As long as you’re presenting the right fly.” This type of article
creates a construct out of really nothing & attempts to conflagrate it to
Cold War status. Division creates conflict/drama/tension/excitement - &
that does entertain, hence, it sells. (Sound like a familiar tactic?)
“What’s better? Dryfly or Wetfly?
phffft !
The very premise is shady to
begin with. As if there was some static, empirical, absolute metric for better regarding fly-angling methods.
No country for sane men. And the way I read the famous debate: Halford, the
proselytizer-in-chief, revealed that he was for the most part an air-filled
mo-mo, with little actual knowledge of streamborn insects &, in fact, a
Presentationist, his reputation founded on that. While the polite, respectful,
obviously more advanced & vastly fishier wetfly man, Skues, really couldn’t of cared
less &, I think, would happily have done without the whole thing.
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| Medusa float indicator tied by Mark Hagopian |
I love a good article &,
faffing through internut stuff on old flies, I came across this excellent 1957 Sports Illustrated article by John
McDonald, titled: The Tying Of The Flies. Not quite five years old when this
article appeared, I am impressed with both the quality of the writing, the
subject matter, & how well it has held up. I’ve rarely found an article of
this caliber in a contemporary outdoor periodical. McDonald does not construct a dichotomy, the
nexus of his subject is interpreting the text in an effort to recreate the ambiguous ancient flies described by
Dame Juliana Berners, however in doing so the author posits & explores two
schools of fly design: the Classicists & the Innovators. And no doubt these
two schools exist today. There are those who tie & fish nothing but the old
classics, & get a lot of satisfaction from that. Then there are those who
incline toward the fanciful, operating outside of any frame & having a lot
of fun with that.
These things are to be taken
with a grain of salt, but I would suggest a third school: the Neoclassicist. A
category into which, probably, most SHJ readers fit. The Neoclassicist stands
midstream in tradition, knowing & taking what is useful from the past &
both defining & refining it in new ways. The Neoclassicist is versatile
& flexible – good & useful attributes for one involved in the tying of
the flies. I would put forth that there are probably a lot more innovative Neoclassicists than there are pure-D Innovators. No matter. Together we spiral toward good designs.
https://www.si.com/vault/1957/05/27/602816/the-tying-of-the-flies
Like a lot of you I am at the Winter vise, dreaming of
warmer months, sure, but not in any real hurry to get there. Savoring the last
of the Christmas whiskey, the home fire, the slow pace, & the tying of the
flies. Here’s a few lures I’ll swing in early Spring before the insect hatches
get going. Plenty of red. Red’s a trigger on pre-spawn rainbows in the mood for
a tussle.
The Reel News
Considering the planetary
tipping point.
The key to having it made is
being able to realize when you have
it made.
Thought Mexico was supposed
to be paying for The Wall… But do we really need a wall? Consider roughly half
of the southern border with Mexico
is the Rio Grande
River (water shared by
both countries) & that the Bush administration already built a wall
wherever it is possible do so, short of building it down the center of the
river. So?…
Winter/Spring Trout Spey Spiders
Spruce Spider
Hook: #10 salmon/steelhead
Thread: Wine UNI 8/0
Hackle: Furnace
Body: Pac Bay Ruby 'C' rod wrapping thread -- forward 1/3 peacock herl
Winter Fly
Hook: #8 TMC 200R
Thread: Wine UNI 8/0
Hackle: Brahma hen
Tail: Golden pheasant crest
Rib: Gold tinsel
Body: Olive rabbit; blue dubbing; claret
dubbing
Olive Gun
Hook: #8 salmon/steelhead
Thread: Olive UNI 8/0
Hackle: Guinea
Tail: black yarn
Rib: Silver tinsel
Body: Dark olive
floss/peacock herl
Red Ass Redux
Hook: #8 salmon/steelhead
Thread: Wine UNI 8/0
Hackle: Brahma hen
Tail: Red yarn
Rib: Red wire
Body: Red tinsel/peacock herl
Black/Red Spider
Hook: #8 TMC 200R
Thread: Black UNI 8/0
Hackle: Red Guinea
Tail: Golden pheasant tippet
Rib: Red wire
Body: Black rabbit/mixed red
& black seal