Mr & Mrs Ephemerela

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

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

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

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

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

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..

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.