Post
by PhilA » Tue Feb 17, 2015 10:19 pm
Well, that WiFlyfisher guy is a mischievous character. Outing me to a bunch of soft hackle devotees. This from a guy known to tie flies the size of small birds and fish them long after dark. I think it was Groucho Marx who once said, "I don't want to belong to any club that will accept people like me or WiFlyfisher as a member."
Not sure I have much to add here, but I'll poke around and see what drifts in the current. I've been fishing soft-hackled flies for decades and have developed an interest in the history and traditions of fly fishing. I live in south central Wisconsin, within easy driving distance of many hundreds of miles (two to three thousand, actually) of limestone spring creeks. The fish are wild, the access is excellent, and the streams are very flymph friendly. My name, by the way, is Phil Anderson ... no relation as far as I know to William the luminary.
About that Chadwick's 477 ...
I've long been intrigued by Frank Sawyer's Killer Bug and the mystique of Chadwick's 477 yarn. Over the years, I've gone through phases of trying hard to find the yarn (or a good substitute) and then giving up after not succeeding. I've probably bought – sight unseen – most of the Chadwick's substitutes touted on the Internet. But, when they arrived in the mail, the color match to online photos of Chadwick's was always disappointing.
I occasionally scoured Ebay and Ebay-UK for Chadwick's. Trouble is, a gazillion other possessed souls are doing the same thing, and I'm not about the spend $100 for a card of yarn. Besides, of all the features that contribute to a fly's success, color is WAY down on my list of what is important. Nevertheless, the search continued.
Then, about a year ago I wandered to some out-of-the-way cul-de-sac of the Internet where vintage sewing supplies were offered for sale. In a photo of one offering, a couple of cards of Chadwick's Mending Yarn were mixed among other odds and ends. One was of interest, as it appeared to be a color similar to 477. But, the color number on the card was partially obscured. The "4" and part of a "7" were visible, but the third digit was covered over by something else in the pile. Was it 477? Or, was it one of the 9 other possibilities? I rolled the dice, pushed my $5 forward (plus $3 shipping!), and when the package arrived … jackpot. It was the real deal. Sometimes an angler just gets lucky.
In the end, the satisfaction was the quest for Chadwick's 477, not the yarn itself. I now wander around aimlessly without anything to do except go fishing. Well, not exactly. I'm in discussions with a sheep farmer attempting to score some creamy yellow fur from the scrotum of a white ram. James Leisenring, after all, described a Tup's Nymph as "the best all-around nymph I have found".
Incidentally, while in Montana this past summer, I spent an afternoon fishing the upper Big Hole River. The river holds one of the few remaining populations of native fluvial grayling in the lower 48. I was hoping to knock an item off the bucket list: catch a grayling on a Killer Bug tied with Chadwick's 477. Wish I could show you a photo, but the grayling did not cooperate. I'll try again another year.