Irresistible

Some time ago when I was messing with flies from Harry Darbees book Catskill Flytier I stumbled on a interesting pattern called Irresistible. Tied a couple but I didnt have the proper material for the tail and the wings, I hadto do it with deer hair which isnt any good for that, deer hair has too much air in its fibers so it just gets messy. The other day  Igot a piece of  White-Tail deer body sent to me from a over sea friend, Jack Fields from Central Pennsylvania (thanks Jack). And what a difference it made.

The hardest part of these flies is that you need to tie the body first and then the wing, it gets kind of crowded. On this fly the wing was mounted slightly to long toward the Eye of the hook, I will try to make one more proper later on.

Irresistible
Hook: Partridge SLD #14
Tail: White-Tail deer body
Body: Natural Deer
Wing: White-Tail deer body
Hackle: Dark Rusty Dun cock

In the book Catkill Flytier you can read "Originated by Joe Messinger. Joe sent his fly to Ken Lockwood in the hospital. Ken, an outdoor columnist, said, "I havn´t used this one, but it sure looks Irresitible" from there got its´name.

Time to hit the sack..

Over and out..
Niklas

Messing with a classic

Theodore Gordon’s Gordon Quill, proborably more known as Quill Gordon is one of my absolute favourites, to tie and to fish, both equally important. This fly work fantastic just as it is but during a fishing session I noticed that my way of fishing needed a slightly more buoyant Quill Gordon. I considered the fact of trying to become a better caster or a fly fisherman but came to the resolution that it was no point of trying that. So I decided to mess with the Quill Gordon and give it a body hackle that would give the fly longer drifts, especially in rougher water.

 

Normaly a body hackle takes away a lot of the body material effect. To prevent that from happening I decided to peal off the fibres on one side of the body hackle. This and the fact that I wound the hackle quite sparse gave the body that nice look only a stripped peacock quill can make. Another problem that I thought I could stumble on was the fact of that the hackle could slip on the quill body, I solved that by adding a thin layer of clear super glue before wrapping the body hackle. Finally  I got my fly as I wanted it, a fly with good buoyancy and with a nice visible quill body.

Besides from the fact that this fly works, I actually sent a sample of the fly to the Southern Appalachian Fly tying contest 2011, It gave me a third place. There’s off course a lot to say about competing with fly-tying, but I’m really proud about it. The one sent in for the Contest had a natural coloured bydyquill and hackles from a dark dun cock neck. The one shown here has a dyed brown quill from Polish Quills and hackles from a grizzly/cree coloured cock neck. The fly is tied on a size 14 Partridge SLD.

Over and out
Niklas

Freestyling

The best time together with the wise is sometimes when you are freestyling,or trying out thoughts developed in ones mind. Today I forced myself to sit down and do just that, have had some trouble to find the mojo for tying and thought that this could get me back, and yes it feels like it worked. A while ago I read an article about the Adams in "Fly and tie", an article written by my friend Ulf Börjesson. You could really smell how much he loves the fly Adams, as I also love the pattern, Reading the article got me thinking that maybe I would whip up some Freestyling Adams for my friend, just for fun offcourse.
My thoughts the last few Days was to make a different Adams, there are The Parachute Adams, Irresitible Adams etc.. hrm.. I have never seen a Quill Adams, well folks here it is..

I Think that it turned out pretty nice, in fact I think it´s awesome :-)

Hook:    #14 Partridge SLD
Thread:  Textreme 8/0 "Black"
Body:     Polish Quills "Natural" sealed with Deer Creek Diamond Fine Resin
Hackle:  Coachman Brown/Grizzly
Wings:   Hen cape tips

Over and out
Niklas



Bracken Clock

Finally I found some time to hit the vise tonight, I got my promotion hooks from Partridge last week and I have wanted to get my sticky ones on the hooks for several days now. Unfortunatly I had to use the nice weather this weekend to sort out some stuff on our house, you know some of those "will do later" kind of things.
A fly that have caught my attention this year is a older North Country fly, The Bracken Clock. I got introduced to it by a friend on facebook, Bengt Andersson, he and his friend have caught loads of fish on it, so offcourse  I had to try it out. From pictures I have seen I thought that the fly had a solid peacock body, but a couple of weeks ago I saw a Picture in an old Veniard book and the body on that one was made by a red thread and peacock herl. So I had to try one of those on the Partridge Spider Hook, I used size 16 as I Think that size will be great to try on the Grayling in Gysinge later this fall.



 

Well I am still slightly confused by the background of the fly, I will get back to the blog to tell you all if it worked or not and hopefully with som more info about the fly. If anyone of you guys have some info, please let me know.

Over and out
Niklas

Gone Fishing... soon

Evening my friends
On wednsday afternoon I will go up North to my Gimdalen and my belowed Idsjöströmmen. I will actually go with my some of my new workmates, the new Place I work at has a batch of nice fly fishermen. So I have been really busy with tying flies for august grayling fishing. The Riverkeeper and my friend Lars-Åke Olsson told me that we need flies with peacock herl. Not hard for me to find suitable patterns with that in mind. I started with a pattern  I never tried Before, the Bracken Clock, a really old North Country fly pattern.

Bracken Clock
Hook: Partridge Spider #16
Body: Peacock herl
Hackle: Feather from the neck of a male Partridge
Thread: Red 

Next pattern was Another pattern I never tied Before, i have seen it but never tied or fished with it. The Grayling Witch.

Grayling Witch
Hook: Partridge SLD #16
But: Red wool yarn
Body: Peacock herl
Rib: Flat silver tinsel
Hackle: Dun cock

So.. Tonight I went throug my reels, new leaders, cleaned the lines etc. Tomorow I will pack the rest of the stuff so I will be ready wednsday morning, cant wait to wet my new flies..

See ya..

Back in Business

10 months since my last blogpost, in that post I said I was putting the blog to sleep.. I have thought about it for a while and  feel that I want to wake it up and see how it feels bloggin again.

Lots of stuff have happened that inspired me to try again.. I have become a Pro Staff member of Partridge of Redditch, I signed the contract a couple of days ago, it feels great, have really missed some of their hooks. Mark also showed me some new stuff coming out on the market that looks really interesting. I have also joined the Pro Staff of Polish Quills, I have used their quills for more than a year now and their stuff is pure quality.

So to celebrate these events... a Steel Blue Quill tied on a Partridge Spider Hook and with a quillbody from Polish Quills.

Over and out.../Niklas

The fall, another favourite..

So what does he now talk about, well as much as I love when the winter goes away and the spring comes with all it´s expectasions and possibilities, I also love the fact that it disapears and goes into a new shape, the fall. The fall to me is one of the most beautifull of seasons, with all its colours. Love how the season changes mother nature. Another thing is the possibility of sitting inside in the kitchen tying flies again, without the neighbours thinking that i´m crazy or not sitting inside.

This September I and a couple of friends went ti Idsjöströmmen for a nice fishing weekend, that´s another thing with the fall, the Grayling fishing. I usually take this trip to Idsöströmmen every fall, I love fishing for Grayling this period of the year, no mosquitos and a lot more time to relax and enjoy the companionship with your frinds. We didn´t have as good fishing this year as we usually do but we had a really nice time, loads of really top notch food, wine and all the stuff needed for a great time away.

Here is me catching a nice grayling in Idsjöströmmen, the photo is taken by my friend Ulf Hagström. We´ll se if there will be a fall trip to this place next year, unfortunatly it has become so very popular that it´s hard to make a reservation. Othervise we need to look for somthing else as cancelling the fallfishing isnt´an option.

The Grayling Steel Blue has been my number one fly this fall. I put it together last fall for the fishing in Idsjöströmmen and I have had some really nice fishing with it, both there and at other places. Fun to tie, nice to look at and it catches fish, what more can I ask for.

The fall has also given me som time to tie some other flies. A fly that I love to tie and fish is the Royal Coachman Fanwing, i havnt given it that much time this year so  I sat down and tied a batch, just for fun... and I loved it, so this winter I need to make a batch for next seasons box

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It passes more and more time betwen me posting my thoughts on this blog. It´s alot of work keeping a blog running the way I want and there is not that many intrested, people are more intrested in facebook nowdays? Well we´ll se what happens I have startted to help out a Swedish flyfishing magazine, Flugfiske I Norden. I have actually had three published articles this year, a fact that I am very proud off. It might be so that I will put this blog into sleep and start blogging on the magazines homepage, in Swedish.