Otter, I am glad you bought up the seals. Ireland is about the size of the two bottom provinces of NZ and roughly only 300 miles long one end to the other- lot more land mass here- so more sheep. Also a LOT more coastline and plenty of seals. Many a marine mammal met its demise in NZ's early years to be rendered down to fuel street lamps (whales) or clubbed and skinned for their hides (seals). It was a huge industry here and many a coastal town either owes it's existence to sealing or you can still find evidence of the processing plants and factories.Otter wrote:I take your point re Lures and the influence of the tweeds - but there are a lot of sheep grazing on the bogs around the irish lakes , yet seals fur is the defacto dubbing of choice for irish wet flies.
Do many NZ nymphs etc.. utilise wool much.
But the question still remains, why is it not used more as a dubbing material - surely theres more to it than , What HO, cast a sheep onto the chalkstream , my God what next, democracy by God.
Crap, posted this before CM's reply, so currently two responses blame the fashion industry and that wool aint posh enough.
The reason I made this post is that I have on the floor of my tying room a selection of 100% pure wool carpet samples, in various shades of tan/fawn and even one black - I pinched some of the black sample and was pleasantly surprised to find that it had a nice orangeish hue as against the greyish blue hue that I do not like in black dubbing.
In order to save face from being called a snob, to-night I am going to do a bit of carpet theft and blending and tie up a few early season nypmhs that match the hares ear ones that I normally use. This will tell if the tiers are being snobbish or the trout are being snobbish.
So seal fur sure was not a problem to find here, indeed there are many commercial fishermen calling for culls of what they consider an over population of them now, both here and Tasmania. Yet still wool was the preferred dubbing or fly body material. Not just raw wool off the sheeps back, but spun and dyed knitting wool. It saved the hassle time and expense of dying it yourself.
Wool yarn was easier to wrap on a hook shank before every fisher out there had a vice- easier to control tying by hand and often just as effective as dubbed bodies.
To nymphs, yes, many patterns call for wool bodies, either whole bodies or part there of. I used lures as an easy example- older transition as lures were used a lot for BIG lake dwelling trout where bags for the week were often counted in the fractions of tonnage caught not fish measured by inch, big trout took big imitations of smaller fish or smelt.
I think it is to do with tradition and teachings, patterns handed down through the ages and an unwillingness to step away from the known. In England in the late 1800's early 1900's it was very fashionable to tie with the most exotic material one could own or order to be contract tied for you. Fly fishing was the realm of the wealthy and well to do, they could afford such posing. The poacher who plied his trade under their very noses, albeit covertly, no doubt used much simpler materials for his flies (and I have no doubt wool would have been among them) and probably did just as well if not better fishing wise. However, lacking the wealth of gentry he did not publish his patterns in written volume complete with artistic colour prints.
Simple wools and other cordage work and can work well (the Burlap Steelhead fly). I could list all the patterns in Keith Drapers iconic NZ pattern tying book and probably count on one hand the patterns calling for seal dubbing, but need to use a calculator to count the number calling for wool.
Best method is to form your own opinions, try it and see. If it works for you- you have found a cheap easily available material, if it does not then revert to the materials you know. At least you may have tried something new and had some fun along the way.
