Niklas Dahlin -Flytier

Mr & Mrs Ephemerela

2011-10-29T06:46:00.000-07:00

Planning an early spring fishing in the “Charmed Circle of the Catskills”? do not forget to bring a batch of suitable imitations of Ephemerela Subvaria, one of the American fly fishers most important mayflies.

The hatch of this important specie starts in the Pennsylvanian streams in late April and has it’s peak in the Catskills in mid may, and later the longer up north you get. After the first mayflies have shown themselves you can count on about three weeks of fishing.

There are two flies with legendary status that are made up to imitate the Ephemerela Subvaria, the Hendrickson and the Red Quill. The reason because that there are two different flies to cover this mayfly are that the male and the female of this specie have a distinct difference of colour. Another thing to have in mind are that they seldom hatch in the same riffle, because of this the fish can get quite selective sometimes. Good thing for the fly fisher is another of the characteristics of this mayfly, it have a habit of spending quite some time on the surface before it leaves the stream. So to be sure, have an imitation of both the male and the female mayfly in your box.

The Hendrickson
The originator of this fly is one of our early Catskill tyers, Roy Steenrod of Liberty. Steenrod was thought to tie flies by the biggest of them all, Theodore Gordon. Gordon did actually give Steenrod his first vise.

The fly was originated 1916 after a fishing trip, the fly proved itself and after two years Steenrod´s friend asked why it didn’t have a name, “well” said Steenrod while looking at his friend A.E. Hendrickson “it’s a Hendrickson”, wonder if he realized that this fly would become one of the most popular flies imitation of the Ephemerela Subvaria in America. Steenrod tied his Hendrickson in different shades to match the hatch just as Gordon, his teacher did with his Quill Gordon.

Hendrickson recepie
Wing: Wood duck flankfeather
Tail: Blue dun cape
Body: Tan fur from red fox belly
Hackle: Blue dun cape

Red Quill
One of my absolute favourite “Catskill Style dry flies”, the Red Quill is this species female imitation. The fly was originated 1933 by Art Flick another one of our Catskill heroes. In his book the Streamside Guide he humbly claims himself to be the first to use hackelstem for body material. Unfortunately he was wrong about this as you can read about it being used as body material on a red spinner pattern in McClelland book Tying Flies for Trout & Grayling from the 1890´s

Red Quill Recepie
Wing: Wood duck flankfeather
Tail: Blue dun cape
Body: Stripped hackelstem ”Rhode Island red”
Hackle: Blue dun cape

There are several ways of obtaining hacklestem for body material. The old way is to soak the feathers, Flick said to soak the feathers over night, then rip the fibers from the stems. I find this to be quite messy and that you just don’t rip fibers from the stems, also some of the colour. I put my feathers in a solution of 50% water and 50% Clorox, after 2-3 minutes all the fibers are gone. This way might make your stems slightly brittle, but if you soak them properly in warm water for a while before using it shouldn’t be a problem. There are also some companies that sells pre stripped hacklestem, unfortunately the ones I have tried haven’t been to my satisfaction.

Give yourself a chance to add another dimension to your flyfishing, give these two legendary flies originated by heroes of the past a chance. I bet you will make room for them in your flybox as well as in your heart, not just for their seducing looks but also because of their effectiveness.

Catskill dry fly demo in Dalarna

2011-09-28T11:56:00.000-07:00

Saturday 8/10 I will demonstrate some Catskill style dry flies at a fly only shop in Dalarna, Capricorn. This shop is one of the nicest and well stocked fishingshops I have ever had the pleasure of visiting. Be sure to visit it when or if you pass Borlänge in Dalarna. Well anyway, I felt I wanted to play a little with the patterns I shall tie so this evening i started with one of my absolute favourite flies to tie and fish, as I said before "both equally important". The fly I´m talking about is Art Flick´s Grey Fox, tied with Ginger tail and body, the hackle is Cree, grizzly and ginger. Normally these are tied in bigger sizes, this one is tied on a Mustad 94840 size 14. I do favour smaller ones for my personal fishing though.

Yellow Humpy

2011-08-21T21:46:00.000-07:00

The Humpy was at first called “Horner’s Deer Hair Fly. The whispering among the wonderful world of fly tiers is that the Humpy was originated during the early 1940´s at the vise of California fly tier Jack Horner. Jack lived in Hat Creek, Northern Sierra”. The fly was perfect for the rough water at the Truckee River which Jack often fished, there was even a bend in the river called “Horner’s Corner”.

The name “Humpy” came in the late 1940´s, the rumour says it was Boots Allen, owner of a small fly shop in the region of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Humpy find it’s place in the fly fishermen’s box as one of those flies we use when nothing else works or when there’s no bugs around. The Humpy is proborably one of the most successful attractor flies ever created.

A Humpy isn’t one of the easiest flies to tie. The wing takes time to get right and it’s kind of hard to get the proportions right. But when tying this batch I felt like that I started to find peace with tying it. Just take it easy and don’t rush it, the fly is totally worth the time that it takes to tie it.

There are numerous variations of the Humpy Red, Royal, Green and so on. The most common one I believe is the “Yellow Humpy”. A really sexy variant is the “Black Humpy”, I hadn´t seen that one before I started to look a little deeper in the world of the “Humpies”, I think that one will become my favourite. I think the black one can be really toxic in smaller sizes. This “Black Humpy” is tied in size 14, will try to make some in size 18.

Flytying time is near

2011-08-20T12:34:00.000-07:00

Evening, havn´t been much activity at the vise this summer. But now "I feel it in my fingers, i fell it my..." the urge of playing with feathers is finally back. I have started to fill up a new box for a little adventure that I´m hoping to be able to attend in september. Will go with one of my flyfishing neighbours, my friend has been there before and he have had good fortune earlier there with the Royal Wulff so that will be my first task for the box. As much as I love to tie the Royal Coachman Fanwing I actually prefer to fish the Royal Wulff, the RF is much more boyant than the RFC. The RF is a little rougher to tie though, the wing is easier on the RFC. These flies are as said quite boyant but to get them really boyant I impregnated all the RF´s with Tiemcos Dry fly formula. I´m quite sure I have got a batch of great floaters with that.
Next fly to tie will be another batch of "attractors", the yellow Humpy. But more about that one later..

Back to the vise

2011-07-10T13:51:00.000-07:00

After talking about getting back to the vise the other day I could no longer resist, the urge was to great. I´m having a small project inside my head and for that I need among other patterns a Variant. The Variant chosen for the job was Art Flicks "Dun Variant". This fly was one of the flies that got me going when I started tying flies. I found it in Lennart Bergqvist´s "Flugbindning på mitt sätt" ("Flytying, my way"), after finding this fly I tried tying in hacklestem´s as body on basicly all of my flies.
The Dun Variant

And as I might go for some fishing this coming weekend, I also tied some of my special Variants. This Variant is made with a mixed hackle of coachman brown and grizzly, the hacklestem from a ginger cock´s neck and the tail from coachman brown. I have been quite lucky with these in size 16 & 18.

Special Variant

See you soon....

Being Lazy

2011-07-09T05:49:00.000-07:00

Have not being that active during some time now. Well life has more to offer than flyfishing and flytying, might be a good thing to consider sometimes. I have had some vacation and has spent 4 weeks with my family. We have finally visited Legoland in Denmark, a place we have talked about lots of times. We also stayed a week in Dalarna, Rättvik to be more precise, my fiance´s parents live there. Went on a smaller fishing trip to Idre with my father in law, nice but the fishing was rubbish.
In my earlier post about Lungsjöån I promised to post some more pictures, I didn´t have that many that were any good but this one kind of represents the day there quite good.

I got a piece published in Blood Knot magazine , a friend of mine Andy Baird asked me to contribute so I did, a small piece on the Royal Coachman fanwing. I am quite happy with it actually.

I will soon get back to the vise and get the blog going again, just need to finish some stuff on the house. Until then I hope you all have a great summer.

Later
Niklas

Here we go again..

2011-05-08T10:32:00.000-07:00

Finally, the fishing season is here. To be honest I was out cheating with my friend Marc Fauvet two weeks ago but, after yesterday´s fantastic day on Lungsjöån in Dalarna I must say ... now it has started. I feel it in every part of my body, I wan´t more!

It started good, I actually got quite surprised as it seems like I have learned to listen to myself, so I actually sat down and just watched the spot were I was planning to start. A nice cup of tea and a Honey berry cigarr. Right away I saw some fish rise, I guessed they were taking some stuff in the surface but I couldn´t resit to put on a Coachman anyway. So I did, and after maybe 3 cast i got this years first fish on the dry, and a true classic it was.

After a while it got tougher to get them to take the dry flies so I took the oppurtunity to try out the Baetis Nymph I put together for "Lungsöån box" the nymph really worked, it did it´s job just under the surface as I wanted and got me 3 nice trouts, then to really make it a Niklas Dahlin fly... I placed in a nice tree, offcourse to high for me to reach.

After loosing the nymph I started to fish the Blackbird Spider, another fly from the "Lungsjöån box", this one also worked, this fly stayed in the surface. This gave me on more trout and lots of lost ones.

I will post some pics of the fishes later, my friend took the photos and I havn´t got any copies yet. If you are interested in trying tho "Lungsjöån box" of flies contact Jonas at jonashagborg@hotmail.com.

Swapping

2011-04-16T01:27:00.000-07:00

The other week I got the oppurtunity to do a "flyswap" with one of the great ones, Bob Mead. I have never before seen his stuff in flesh, but as many others I have admired his creations on the web. Bob is one of the pioneers in Realistic flytying, what a piece for my collection...

I´m offcourse really honoured to get this chance.

Bob Mead´s Lady bug

Today I made the flies that I shall send to Bob.. As the Hendrickson´s is starting to make it´s entrance at this time within the "Charmed circle of the Catskill´s", I choose to make Mr and Mrs of that mayfly.
Red Quill

Hendrickson

Once again my flies will be travelling over the pond without me following :-) Well, I will be there in November, hopefully I will meet Bob and all other of my heroes and legends.

Southern Appalachian Flytying Championship

2011-03-27T00:57:00.000-07:00

In January I sent a a set of flies to participate in a flytying competiton in the states The Southern Appalachian Flytying Championship. Last week i got the result, I found myself on third place, offcourse I´m honoured. The winner was Wayne Samson and on second place Mr Deer hair specialist Chris Helm, well done mates.. I got a really nice prize a fly tied by Mary Dette, "the Kaaterman" a glasdome to mount it in and also really nice print of my fly. There was also a 25$ check but that I asked them to send to the Catskill Flyfishing Museum.

We were supposed to tie two flies, one mandatory on "The Tellico Nymph". This fly kind of caught me, it was funny to play with something I never tied before. By the way.. thank´s Håkan for helping me with the materials I didn´t have in my stash..

Then there was the other fly.. Here I wanted something really special, something from my heart. So I choose my favourite fly "Quill Gordon" and added something to that, thought I would do a version of it to match the situation when you want a more boyant fly, to use when the water is a little rougher. I added a body hackle, not a full one though cause I still wanted to see the peacock quill properly. I simply stripped one side of the hackle and to make sure the hackle didn´t slip on the quill I added a thin layer of superglue before wrapping the hackle. Personally I think the fly looks really toxic and I can´t wait to try it out this coming season.

The Coffin Fly

2011-03-09T12:05:00.000-08:00

"The Coffin Fly" was first designed by Walt Dette and his friend Ted Townsend in the beggining of the 1930´s. Walt did over the years work on the pattern making several improvements, It is still today a popular fly in the Catskills. The fly is supposed to imitate a spent Ephemera Guttulata or more common named Green Drake the largest of the mayflies within the charmed circle of the Catskills.

American March Brown

2011-03-06T12:25:00.000-08:00

The March Brown is a name of a fly that has been mentioned in fishing literature for hundred of years. The March Brown I tied here is not that old. The American March Brown was originated by Preston Jennings and he has it published in his book “A book of troutflies” as a imitation for the American March Brown. Mr Jennings was experimenting on how light refracts off a insect on the surface, and how the trout perceives such light, this and more made Mr Jennings to come up with this pattern, one of the more known Americna dry fly patterns.

His "A Book of Troutflies" was first published 1935 and was the first book that gave the American fly fisherman a good reference to American trout stream insects. Mr Jennings was a highly regarded angler and fly tier.

Coachman

2011-02-23T13:20:00.000-08:00

Although one of my absolute favourite flies to fish and tie are the Royal Coachman Fanwing I have never tied the fly behind it "The Coachman". After reading an article about one of my friends, the article described my friend and his favourite fly... and as I will meet him this weekend while tying at a fair in Dalarna I thought I should make him some.

The fly was first tied around 1830 by Mr Tom Bosworth. Tom was not only a great flytier but also a coachman to George IV, William IV and Queen Victoria. Personally I count this fly as one of the true classic dryfly´s. I´m looking forward to try this bug this coming spring, and I really enjoyed tying it.

Grey Partridge (Grey Watchet)

2011-02-19T23:40:00.000-08:00

At the moment I´m in something who can be reffered to as a "Spidermode". Working on the script for one of my coming DVD´s, one of the two DVD´s will be about Spiders or North Country Flies. The DVD will not be about me sitting and telling people what´s right or wrong, it will be about the flies and how I tie them, about me and my view on flytying and to show that you don´t need to be a "procaster" to catch fish. More about this another day.

Grey Partridge or Grey Watchet

I´m thinking of putting this one in to the DVD. I like the apparence of it and it will suit the period of when we will be filming the fishingparts. The book of T.E Pritt "North Coutry flies" says that the fly works best at cold days, and in the evenings during June and July.

Recepie:

Wings: Hackled with a light feather from a Partridge´s breast.

Body: Straw-coloured silk.

Head: Peacockherl

1. Start with your thread behind the eye and wind 4-5 turns back, this will give you a nice foundation for the peacock herl that will be tied in later. Tie in your Partridge breast feather, backside up. Cut the excess material.

2. Wrap your thread in tight turns back to where the hook start´s to bend. Turn and wrap to just behind where the hackle is tied in.

3. Wind the hackle, I took two wraps on this fly. Catch the hackle with the thread.....

4. ...and work the thread through the hackle. Stop the thread behind the hookeye.

5. Tie in the Peacock herl.

6. Wrap the peacock herl around the thread to make yourself a "Peacock herl thread". You can offcourse wrap the herl as it is but this will leave a less durable Pecock herl head.

7. Give the head 4-5 turns of "Peacock herl thread" and finish it up with a 3-4 turn of Whipfinish, give the thread some extra wax before the whipfinish, that will make it a little more durable. Now we have a classic North Country Fly ready for those cold early summer night´s..

Stewart Black Spider

2011-02-13T10:40:00.000-08:00

The "Stewart Black Spider" is one of my three favourite Spider patterns, both to tie and fish. So this afternoon I tied some "Stewart black Spider" one of three "most killing" spiders from W.C Stewart´s book the "The Practical Angler", a fly that´s more than 150 years old, and still going strong. W.C Stewart said "we were first shown it by James Ballie, and have never been without it on our line since".

1. Start with your thread on the middle of the shank.

2. Wrap your thread to the hookeye, create a small head. Select a feather with a fiberlength equall to the shank and tie it in.

3. Lay the thread on the inside of the featherstem and put together thread and feather with a hackleplier.

4. Twist feather and thread with the help of the hackleplier until it looks as on the picture. I use to help the fibers some with my fingers.

5. Wrap the "hackled thread" backwards 3-4 wraps and tie it off. Cut off the excess of the feather.

6. Make some 3-4 extra wraps of thread and whipfinish behind the hackle.

Looking back

2011-01-05T12:17:00.000-08:00

I started tying flies the winter of 2005-2006.. I still remember going in to that fishingstore finding the "start flytying kit" and I felt that I got to few christmas presents so offcourse I earned that box. Many hours and curses later tying the flies from the manual I gradually needed something new to try out. So I found what here in Sweden is considered to be the Swedish flytiers holy bible Lennart Bergqvists book "Flugbindning på mitt sätt" or in english "Flytying my way".

In this book I found a fly that really got me started was Art Flicks Variant. Still today this fly is one of my top fishingflies. Love to tie it , love to fish it....

I didn´t know then that it was a Catskill style dry fly, the tying style that now keeps me busy reading, tying, dreaming etc etc.. The thing that really caught my attention was then the body made of quill, more specific hacklestems. After getting to know the material a little I then started to experiment widely, putting hackle-stems on almost eveything. A fly that came out during that time was variation of another fly found in that book, the Streaking Caddis. A true fishing fly that´s responsible for many trout and graylings. The body is on the original fur but on my variation of it offcourse hacklestem. I have never liked using varnish, messy and takes to much time to dry. On this fly I want atleast two layers to give the body a nice depth, so I quickly found that clear superglue made a nicer body more quickly as the time for each layer to dry was reduced.

A couple of days ago my friend Ulf Hagström reminded me about this fly, and we agreed to do a "one on one" swap. Great as I wanted some of his wicked emergers and the fact that I felt the urge of doing some Streaking Quills.. The one on the picture above is made of stripped ginger hacklestem, black thread and three layers of clear superglue. The Streaking Quill is also one of my absolut favourite flies to fish and tie.

Quill Gordon

2011-01-02T12:26:00.000-08:00

What could be better to start up the blog of 2011 than with a true classic Catskill Style Dry fly. The "Quill Gordon" or "Gordon Quill" Theodore Gordons legacy. This is one of my absolute favourite flies to fish and tie, both offcourse equally important. Gordon tied this fly in different shades and sometimes with a gold wire to get a bronze shade to the body.

A couple of weeks ago I got a copy og John McDonalds "The Complete Fly Fisherman". In this very heavy volume of flyfishing history I found loads of intresting stuff to read. It´s easy to get kind of afraid of the book at first sight as it is loades of pages and small letters. But I assure you, it is great and full of nice small talks and letters.

Here is what Gordon wrote to G.E.M Skues on May 7, 1906
"I would like to have you try the following. Body plain quill, peacock, light color, hackles and tail, light blue hackle, wings wood-duck plain, mottled from a good sized finely mottled feather, using double for each side of the stem. I usually varnish the foundation to strenghten the quill. It is a light blue quill with wood-duck wings, and I will gamble on it killing, if dressed to suit the water..."

As well as I love to tie the classics by original recepie, I also sometimes love to play a little and do some changes to them. One idea I have had for a while is to put a boddyhackle on this lovely pattern. With a body hackle I believe this fly will work even better in rough water. I didn´t wan´t it to bushy though so I stripped one side of the feather before wrapping the bodyhackle. I didn´t want to strenghten the hackle with wire or thread either because I wanted as much of the quill possible still visible, so I gave the quillbody a small amount of clear superglue before wrapping the bodyhackle.

I´m really looking forward to try this one on Trout and Grayling hiding in the rough water. Will do my best to try and remember to tell you how it worked.

Red Quill -Wet

2010-11-21T01:39:00.000-08:00

This fly is one of the really old ones, it is said to be on of four flies used by Lord Edward Grey. The fly is a creation from the wise of Thomas Rushworth who tied it for the first time in 1803. Later it was also tied as a dryfly, one of F.M. Hallford´s favourite flies. The dry fly is also represented here on my blog.

It is fished as an imitation of the Blue winged olive spinner but with it´s reddish-brown body it also represents several other spinners. It can be an invaluable fly on a river when the trout is bulging, feeding on nymphs. Though it looks more like a spinner it can also be very effective during a hatch of duns.

I tied this batch for a Wet fly swap on http://www.sparsgreymatter.com/. So these will be sent any day over the pond to one of my favourite tiers Jim Slattery, and shared to guys like Andy Brasko. Hard to get more competent feedback possibility than that. Hrm, got a little nervous there..

Tail: Reddish-brown hen fibers
Body: Stripped peacock quill dyed reddish-brown
Wing: Starling wing
Collar: Reddish-brown hen hackle

Winter nights

2010-11-14T09:42:00.000-08:00

You relly need to talk your self into some positive thinking on days like this. The snow that we got last week now melting away and leaving a mess. Well a good thing is that it´s easy to talk yourself inte sitting down at the vise, reflecting over the past season and making plans for next. I just love sitting by the vise dreaming away. At Bffi I got something to dream about, I got a really sweet offer making some DVD´s with Roland at http://www.sporting-scene.com/ so now I´m kind sitting and making plans for that, very exciting.

Made this little bug tonight for a Swap i´m attending. I call it a "Lazy Man´s Black Gnat"

I will leave you with some words from one of my heroes Theodore Gordon:

" It is a bitter winter´s night and I am far away from the cheerful lights of town or city. The north wind is shrieking and tearing at this lonely house, like some evil demon wishful to carry it away bodily or shatter it completely. The icy breath of this demon penetrates through every chink and crevice, of which there appear to be many, and the wood-burning stove is my only companion. It is on nights such as these, after the turn of the year, that our thoughts stray away from the present to other scenes and very different seasons. We return in spirit to the time of leaf and blossom, when birds were singing merrily and trout were rising in the pools. We remember many days of glorious sport and keen enjoyment, and then somehow our thoughts take a turn and leap forward. Spring is near, quite near, and it will soon be time to go a-fishing. We want to talk about it dreadfully. O for a brother crank of the flyfishing fraternity, one who would be ready to listen occasionally and not insist upon doing all the talking, telling all the stories himself. But if we cannot talk we can write, and it is just possible that some dear brother angler will read what we say upon paper".

Catskill dry... almost

2010-09-01T12:35:00.000-07:00

Felt like I wanted to try to make a nice dry fly with a classic Catskill look but made for a neater presentation, also wanted a body that gave the apperance of a segmented body.

The wing is made of Hooded Manganser flank that I found at Joe and his Dette Trout flies, similar to Woodduck but darker. For the tail I choose Coq de leon barbs, great for tails long, stiff and nicelly multicoloured. The effect on the body was created by using two stripped hacklestems of different colour, one rhode island red and the other from a really dark rooster neck. After wounding these two stems I coated the body with superglue to get a nice shiny and durable body. Before tying in the hackle I tie in a Turkey biot, the hackle is Dun Whiting saddle.

After wounding the hackle I started on the getting the neater presentation on the fly. I start to force the hackle underneath of the fly to a V-shape, I do cut off some barbs sother won´t be to many barbs on the sides. When satisfied with the V-shape I fold the Turkey biot over to help the V-shape to stay in place. This will now make the fly to lie much neater on the watersurface. Well now it´s up to the trout or the Grayling to judge if it works or not...

Herman Christian frame

2010-08-16T10:07:00.000-07:00

Made this frame with some known flies from Herman Christian. Hard to find patterns with his label on them in the books. Anyway, Herman was one of he pioneers within the Catskill Style flytyers. He was known as a great fisherman, a guy who caught the bigger ones. Was a close friend to Theodore Gordon, learned to tie flies by taking apart Gordon´s flies. More about Mr Christian here.

Just finished

2010-08-01T01:23:00.000-07:00

I like to have some stuff with me to help me to get that right atmosphere when tying at events. Next weekend on Friday I will be at "Call of the wild´s" to show some Catskill patterns and talk a little about them. For this occasion I chosed to make a frame of Theodore Gordon and two of his more famous patterns, made three of them. Why Theodore Gordon? Well, In my opinion he´s the guy behind the "Catskill Style" flies and as it is that I will talk about during the show....

Mosquito

2010-07-07T02:54:00.000-07:00

Was searching for something new to try out this morning. Scrolled through one of my favourite books "The Dettes" by Eric Leiser. By the way, my copy is actually a signed first edition that I bought from my friend Joe Fox grandson to Mary Dette, yep the shop is still running Dette trout flies, check it out..
Well, back to my search...Found this little "bugger" that I believe will make a great contribution to my box. Will make some in smaller sizes #16-18 for the fall fishing for the Grayling. This one however is tied on a #12 Allcock W170 and will make a contribution to my demo portofolio. Tied it in true Catskill Dry Fly Style.

A little something.... Made one just before this one, proborably one of my better ties.. But one of the wings slated slightly so I just wanted to fix it a little... Yep I teared it of, shit happens doesn´t it?

Been away fishing

2010-06-26T11:11:00.000-07:00

Once more I have to excuse myself for not taking care of my blog. Well, anyway here I am...

My brother and a couple of friends took a few days of for going up north to wet our lines in Lars-Åke Olssons Idsjöströmmen, located in Gimdalen. The place in Sweden if you aim for the "lady of the stream" or the Grayling. This strem contains loads of big nice Graylings so at this place even I couldnt miss getting a fish or two.

This time was a little special for me as I recently got my self a Ulf Löfdahl Cane rod, a 7" #4. For the occation I tied up a couple of #16 Quill Gordons, classic rod - classic fly.. Don´t wan´t it another way..

Said and done... A sip of single malt, a nice cigarr then of down in the water. Splitcane, Quill Gordon and Baetis Rhodanis hatching all over, what could go wrong.. on my third cast this year..

Gottcha.. And with this my new sniper rod in this heavy stream and a Grayling 45 cm, well do I need to tell you it was funny? The fight took some time but offcourse it was worth it.

A little later during the day I got my biggest one this weekend. I took it on one of Roy Christies fantastic back to front emergers, thank´s Roy... 50 cm big.

Believe it, it is me, and it was I who got them nice fishes.

Red Quill

2010-05-01T08:54:00.000-07:00

Here we have a really old pattern 1803, first tied by an english gentleman by the name of Thomas Rushworth. I believe this fly was the one that Mr Art Flick borrowed the name from to his Red Quill.

The Complete Flytier

2010-02-22T11:02:00.000-08:00

“From Reuben R. Cross Lew Beach , New York” A trademark full of respect by anglers from the past and present. Theodore Gordon might very well be the one that popularized the dry fly to the American flyfishers, but from looking at pictures of flies from Cross and others my opinion is that it´s Cross who set the standards to the Catskill style dry fly of today. Cross was the first professional flytier to write a book about flytying, Tying American trout lures (1936). He wrote three more books, Cowdung of Shrin Creek, Fur Feathers and Steel (1940) and finally The Complete Flytier (1950).

Reuben Cross grew up in the Neversink area, the domains of the master himself, Theodore Gordon. Cross claims to have learned to tie flies from Gordon, who knows? The stories tells othervise, not even Herman Christian who was a close friend to Gordon got any hints or lessons from him. On the other hand it´s known that Gordon taught Roy Steenrod to tie flies. Later Cross said he learned to tie flies by taking apart Gordon´s flies, this feels more reasonable as it seems to have been a common way to learn the art those days. Cross himself wasn´t that eager to share his knowledge either, Walt Dette said that he offered Cross 50$ if he taught him to tie flies, an offer Cross quickly turned down. Other stories tells that Cross did show his techniques and secrets as long as he didn´t felt any competition, a fact I can relate to as he was a semiprofessional flytier and partly tied flies for a living. Later in Cross´s flytying career he did great efforts in sharing his knowledge, attending at angling fairs etc.

The Cross Special

Reuben´s most known fly was the “Cross Special” named by the way it´s originated, a “Cross” between a “Quill Gordon” and a “Light Cahill”. Cross was once asked about what made the “Cross Special” so special, “Not a damned thing”, he replied.

During the time my own interest of the “Catskill style dry fly” grown into the passion of today I have learned that Cross was kind of a grumpy guy. After have reading his last book “The Complete Flytier” and after writing this little piece I have slightly changed my mind about Mr Cross. The book is about flytying in general, techniques, patterns and materials. The book is easy to read and understand, kind of laid back written and here and there I also found some laughs, so how grumpy could Mr Cross be? One of the laughs were the “Tie a dry fly” part were in the book is shown, tie in the tails first. Walt Dette who learedn to tie by taking Cross´s flies apart said that that wasn´t the way he tied them, so maybe he tried to hide some secrets even in his own book. My favourite parts of the book was the chapter of “Effective Patterns” were I found the “Ken Lockwood” Gray hackle and tails, Woodduck split wing and gold wired raffia straw body.
Ken Lockwood

Another chapter that fascinated me was the “favourite patterns”. Her I found the “Monsignore” originated by a Mr Claude Norton a flytier active in Newburgh, New York.
Monsignore

Also found the “Cochy Knight” originated by Jack Knight.
Cochy Knight

Herman Christian

2010-01-14T14:34:00.000-08:00

Herman Christian 1882-1975

An old woodsman, trout fisherman, farmer, fishing guide, hunter and one of the hallowed four flytyers who founded the Catskill fly-tying tradition.

Christian was a great trout fisherman, widely known for his skills of finding the bigger fish. Christian learned to know Theodore Gordon around 1906 as a result of that he needed some decent flies, he had heard the rumors of Gordon’s flies so off course he decided that he needed some of those. As time went by they became friends. Christian was on a regularly basis fishing with Gordon, showed him where the really big trout’s were to be found. Despite the fact of Christian guiding Gordon in the Catskills after the big ones, Gordon never showed Christian anything regarding fly-tying. Gordon even put away his materials etc whenever Christian came by. Christian learned the secrets and how to tie flies by taking apart Gordon’s flies.

The most known patterns Christian left us are the “Christian Red Body” and the “Christian Green Body”. Two similar flies with the color of the body to separate the two patterns. The tail and hackle uses stiff fibers of dark dun, a peacock quill makes a nice dark rib over the glossy floss body leaving a nice segmentation and finally a lovely divided wood duck wing.

I think these two flies are amongst the most beautiful Catskill patterns. Now I only have to try them on the trout as well, and as Christian was known for his big catches he should know what he was doing when he created these masterpieces.

In between...

2009-12-27T12:51:00.000-08:00

Now between a Merry Christmas and the Happy New Year I finally found some spare time to try out some new stuff that I recently came over. Some "White Deer Hair" and some really "White Fur". The Deerhair comes from.. eh well a Deer and the fur from my mother in law´s cat, a Ragdoll, really cool cat by the way.
I have been searching ffor White Deer Hair for some time as I wanted it for Elsie Darbee´s Coffin Fly, it is needed for the body. Spun Deerhair cut short, makes a really nice lifejacket for a Hook #12.

The really White Fur from the cat was needed for Reuben Cross´s Cross Special, I noticed it in Mike Vallas -Tying Catskill styl dry flies. There was something I just couldn´t resist in that really white body.

I hope you like it... As usually I did :-)

Better late than never

2009-11-28T11:28:00.000-08:00

I have not spent as much time with my blog lately, sorry, other obligations and some lack of mojo maybe?

Well... Got a parcel of Peccary from my friend Andy Baird a couple of weeks ago. Sat down this week and played with that, really liked the mottled effect it had on a Catskill dry I made with it. I will call it the Peccary Dun until I fin a more sexy name for it. The wings are of Teal, tails also Peccary..
Will be back with some more within a couple of days, just wanted to say hello...

British flyfair Auction

2009-11-01T08:23:00.000-08:00

Steve who is running the British flyfair has this year´s auction set up to benefit the Potteries flytyingclub. The members of this club are an important link in the chain of staff setting up the world´s greatest flytying show.
Last year going there I didn´t really know about this event, so couldn´t do more than donate a couple of flies, If I remember correctly it gave like 10£. As a pretty competitive guy I wasn´t that satisfied with that contribution.... Well to this year´s event I took out the big artillery. I sent out some E-Mails and together with some friend started up a world vide project, a display frame with flies from the book North country flies by T.E Pritt. Now with only a couple of days left before departure it was finally ready, sort off. One of the participants, Charlie Davidson had his flies missing in action with a little help from the postal office. This issue will be solved in Stoke. I really hope that our efforts will give this fantastic group off people in the Potteries flytying club some funds, maybe even enough to invite me as a guestspeaker :-)

You can see the participants names and flies chosen in the picture. I wish to take this opportunity to thank everyone joining this our little project, myself is honoured by being a part of this bunch of "top notch" tyers.

Hope to see a lot of people laying bid´s on the frame..

Getting ready...

2009-10-11T14:16:00.000-07:00

Only a month left to this year top event, British Flyfair. This means busy times for us participating at flytyers row. Last year I just made some display flies, this year I have promised myself to make some stuff to create a nice atmosphere at my table..
First item, a Catskill collection in a handmade wooden box, box made by Lars Andersson a skilled Swedish craftsman.

The box has 18 Catskill flies in it. From left Royal Coachman Fanwing, March Brown, Quill Gordon, Red Quill, Conover and Ginger Variant. This box is offcourse when the "displayjob" is done possible to buy if anyone will be intrested.

The Royal Coachman Fanwing, one of my favourite flies to tie.

Second.. Some display flies.

Third out.. A Stewart "Three Killing spiders" frame. I have made four of them, will try to sell them to finance my trip.

Well these items and more will help me to make a nice little area for me and my visitors.

A story about a fly and it´s originator

2009-09-26T09:57:00.000-07:00

The Bradley special

Most dry flies fished in America during the end of 1800´s were mostly imported English patterns dressed to suite English waters. Because of this dry fly fishing wasn´t very common at this time. But in the end of the 1800´s that started to change, one of the pioneers was Theodore Gordon sometimes called “father of American dry fly fishing”. Most fishermen have heard of Mr Gordon, but there was offcourse others. I will with this piece try to tell a little story about a fly and it´s originator.

I first saw the “Bradley Special” in a fly swap I hosted, it was tied by my friend Roy Christie. It didn´t look like much but something with it´s simplicity caught my attention. Offcourse the fact of me never heard of it before also added some spice to the situation. The rumour says that a William A. Chandler, a well known fly fisherman from the banks of Neversink originated this fly. He was a good flytier and tied all his flies himself as the imported ones from England didn´t satisfie him. Chandler had great belief in that the wings was the most important part of the fly and also he added extra fibers to the tail, the common way at this time was two to three fibers but Chandler could use up to six sometimes even eight fibers.

The “Bradley Special” is the result of Chandler and his friend, Beaverkill trout club member William A. Bradley efforts. Chandler and Bradley was experimenting with a dry fly for fast water. They came up with a fly dressed with brownish mallard flank for the wing, rough blue/gray fur from the back of the red squirrel spun in a double strand of red silk. Finally medium red hackle for hackle and tail. Chandler later gave the fly the name after his friend.

In later years Mr Bradley had his “Bradley Special´s” made by the Dette´s. You could really tell that Chandler and Bradley had experimented with this fly as he wanted the fly tied in several different way´s depending on the water, weather conditions etc. The Dette´s did during this time make these special orders for their customers. They had a special card with Bradley´s different dressings for his belowed fly. In Eric Leisers book “the Dettes” you can understand that Mr Bradley was a quite demanding customer, he also made them promise not to sell the fly to any other customer. Winnie said -Quite frankly, he was a real pain in the you know what.

Reference
The Dette´s –Eric Leiser
Trout fishing in the Catskills –Ed Van Put

Recepie

Hook: Model perfect ex Mustad 94840.

Tail: Medium red cape

Body: blue/gray fur from the back of the red squirrel spun in a double strand of red silk.

Wing: Mallard flank tied divided (also tied with Mandarine, Woodduck, Teal and Mallard breast fan wing)

Hackle: Medium red cape

The Adams

2009-09-14T13:17:00.000-07:00

The British flyfair around the corner. This weekend I started to make plans for what to tie. I decided that The Adams will be one of the flies I will demonstrate. Why? well the thing with me and patterns is that I like agood story, and this one got one..

The Adams
Hook: Model perfect dry
Thread: Uni 8/0 White
Tails: Brown/Grizzly rooster
Body: Muskrat/Grey fox underbody fur mixed
Wing: Grizzly hackletips hen or rooster (rounded)
Hackle: Brown/Grizzly rooster

The Adams dry fly came to this world through the vise of Leonard Halladay of Mayfield, Michigan about 1922. Halladay designed the fly for his close friend Charles F. Adams of Lorin, Ohio. Judge Charles F. Adams asked his friend Halladay to create a fly that would imitate the insect the discriminating trout were favoring that day. Leonard Halladay and Charles Adams used The Adams with great success on their beloved Boardman River, Michigan.

From the beggining the fly was tied with two strands Golden Pheasant tippet or grizzly hackle fibers as tails and the wings were tied spent. Some people says that the Adams was first tied as a downwing to imitate a caddis. As for most known and belowed patterns there are a lot of different stories and for sure, the Adams has over the years been tied many different ways.

Even though it was originated in Michigan some catskill tyers like Rube Cross, Walt Dette and Harry Darbee early saw The Adam´s advantages and started to tie it comercially. There are still some contemporary catskill tiers that might shiver when the Adams is called a Catskill pattern. The Adams are proborably one of the most sold flies in America and known all over the world, maybe because of that these gentlemen took it to their vises.

A problem with this fly is to find the round hackle tips that requires for wingmaterial. The search for long, stiff hackles has made the hackletips narrover and more pointed then they were in the 1920´s. Walt Dette´s sollution to this problem was to use hackletips from hen birds.

I hope you enjoyed the story... I did.

Messing with the classics

2009-08-29T14:34:00.000-07:00

Tonight i started up tying some flyes for a fishing trip in September. I read that we could stumble on some Baetis Rhodani. So I used one of my favourite patterns, The Quill Gordon. As we are going to a catch and release water I used a barbless hook, Partridge SLD. Chosed a size 14 as the the body length of the Baetis Rhodani are 6-9 mm. the Tail is Coq de leon, really nice material for tailing, long and nicely segmented. For the body I used Golden olive dyed Peacock herl that I recently got from Mr Holding at the http://www.flytyingboutique.com/ . The dyed herl was perfect in colour to what I was searching of. I can really recomend it, don´t forget to soak it first to soften it a little. The wing, well it´s a Catskill tie so offcourse woodduck, divided. The hackle, Grizzly dyed Golden Olive.

Quill Gordon Variant
I am quite pleased of the result and looking forward to try it on the graylings up in Idsjöströmmen.

The Royster Doyster

2009-08-23T07:36:00.000-07:00

A while ago I had my mate Roy Christie as a houseguest. After have seen one of his wonderfully dyed capes I managed to get him to take care of a grizzly cape that I had laying in my tying bag. So now I have had this wonderfully dyed cape lying in my tyingbag for some time, and today I felt It was time to play with it. I decided to do "The Royster Doyster". "The Royster Doyster" is somewhat a little tribute to my dear friend Roy Christie. Roy was my first foreign flytying mate, now after like 2 years, I consider him one of my best and closest friends. Offcourse he needs his very own fly, and offcourse if I´m doing it it has to be something close to my heart, a catskill style fly, not a quillie though, why.. Roy is more of a dubbing bloke so as a tribute to him the fly need some fur.

Here´s the stuff I used:

Hook: Partridge The Dry #14.. (Quality bloke- Quality hook)

Tails: Coq de leonBody: Red fox underfur (Roy´a clever bloke, so is the fox )Wing: Bronze Mallard

Hackle: Roy Christie special dye

A Tribute to the Dette´s

2009-08-09T04:56:00.000-07:00

My strongest obsession in flytying, the Catskill dry flies. In my opinion the Dette´s, Walt, Winnie and Mary are one of the best examples of true genuine Catskill traditions. Their patterns, flies and skills sets the bar skyhigh. After reading Mike Wallas book "Tying Catskill-Style Dry Flies" I also need to mention

the Dette´s as humble, caring and giving people. Not only with their flytying also as human beings. Thank´s Mike for writing this piece I will cherish it and read it many times. Now I only need to look for a copy of Mr Leisers "The Dette´s" also.

My way of saluting this family is by doing a frame with a selection of their own originated patterns and favourite flies and putting them in a frame. And who is better to ask about the flies than Mike Valla, I sent him a mail and asked him about the Dette´s favourite ties. Mike replied with the Delaware Adams, Coffin fly and the Conover. I used Mike´s book for information concerning the patterns and started to tie them.

Delavare Adams

The Delaware Adams was one of Walt Dette´s favourite ties. It is originated by Walt, he developed it from the Adams.

The Conover

The Conover, Winnie Dette´s favourite fly, both tying and fishing. My Conover has some black tips in the hackle, the story says that Winnie didn´t like that. Sorry Winnie, i didn´t find Golden Badger without the black tippets.

Coffin Fly

Last out of the three Dette flies the Coffin Fly. The original calls for Peccary tails, I didn´t have that so I substituted the Peccary with something more scandinavian, moose mane. I really liked tying this fly and I can´t wait until I get a chance to try it on the trout.

The Tribute

I truly enjoyed working with this frame. There is something very special with this family. i really hope that I one day can go to the Catskills and visit their house where they had their flyshop. Mary Dette Clark, Walt and Winnies daughter is still tying her parents patterns in the Catsills today, and her grandson Joe Fox is running the flyhop. Joe also a great Catskill dry fly tyer.

Hope you liked it

Nik

Quill Spiders

2009-08-04T11:38:00.000-07:00

This weekend I played with my favourite material, Quill. The quill i´m refering to is in this case the quills that you get from stripping the fibers of rooster neck feathers. I got the idea to the first one from my favourite fly, the Red quill originated by Catskill tyer Art Flick. A pattern from the 1930´s if I not remember wrong. Another favourite material is the feathers from the Partridge skin, really love those "spotty" feathers. And finally a real "oldie" when comes to material for flytying, Peacock herl. A material usen on fishcatchers for centuries.
So a fly containg all of my favourite materials, this must be the fly that will make my dreams come true. Like many before...

Red Quill & Peacock

Light Quill & Peacock

A killing duo

Stewart Spiders

2009-07-26T10:23:00.000-07:00

I found the Practical Angler by W.C Stewart online. As I have heard a lot of nice words regarding the Stewart Black Spider it caught my interest. So I read through the book, the chapter of flytying got my biggest interest of course. I got very fascinated in the writing, the thoughts presented by Mr Stewart, and I got the feeling of that not much has happened the last 150 years.

After reading it I got stuck with his "Three killing Spiders" Black Spider, Red Spider and Dun Spider. I felt I just had to do something to show my respect to these fantastic little bugs. I started with the most famous one of them.

Black Spider

Hackle: Starling

Thread: Brown Pearsall´s silk

The "Spider" more known to the word as the Stewart´s black spider is actually not Mr Stewart´s own pattern He mentions in his book that -the pattern was shown to us by James Baillie and has never been missed in our boxes since. So you could say Mr Baillie showed the fly to Mr Stewart and Mr Stewart showed it to the world.

After this fantastic pattern I continued my quest with giving the Red Spider a chance.

Red Spider

Hackle: Landrail

Thread: Yellow Pearsall´s

And as the third of the three killing spiders, was the Dun Spider. This one got me most confused as Mr Stewart left out the colour of the thread in the book. My first thought was then that it should have the same colour as the hackle, I felt that it made sense in some way. I thought Black spider -the dark one, Red spider - the light coloured one and finally the Dun spider as compromise in between. Well I obviously thought wrong, I thought Dun was grey when it is more gray, yellow creamish. I finally found out that the colour of the thread should be yellow.

Dun Spider
Hackle: Dotterel or Starling, inside wing

Thread: Yellow Pearsall´s

I must say that I got really fascinated of the whole thing with these spiders. Reading the book, making the flies etc. I felt I needed even more of this, I wasn´t quite ready yet.. So I decided to make my very own tribute to W.C Stewart. I made three decent buggers and while doing them I started to think of the layout. Found a nice picture in the beginning of the book, also borrowed the book´s title. And finally I was ready..

Next quest will, of course, be to try these bugs out on the fish.