West plates

[Mike Connor]

Unfortunately I am unable to edit previous posts, so I posted the whole lot again for you, but this time with the descriptions etc. Also, the plates with the descriptions were from a different book ( although the plates are the same content in each book the quality varies), and I also used different enhancements, so there are some differences in tone etc. The first set of plates I posted are the best enhancements I have managed to date. I have compared these with most of the actual feathers and they are accurate. The accuracy you see will depend on how your computer screen or printer is calibrated.

I am using ICC ( International Color Consortium) profiles on a DELL U3011, adjusted with a colormunki spectrophotometer.

http://www.amazon.com/ColorMunki-Photo- ... B00169N0BK

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/calibrating.htm

TL
MC

[Kelly L.]

Spectacular work there Mike!

[willowhead]

THANKX!!! Mike..........you are totally amazing.

Bein' on the Sowbug Committee also entails gettin' roped into volunteerin' to canvas for donations...........for the auctions............of course they stuck me with my area..........Lakeview/Bull Shoals............so i'm in the antique tackle shop today.....over (the dam) in Bull Shoals.........soliciting a donation.....and low and behold, don't i just come outta there with 4 more books for 4 more Wasatch bobbins (holders)........
1. an old copy of the Vinyard's Fly Tying materials book.....your plates made me think of this...........
2. A Fly Fishers Life the Art & Mechanics of Fly Fishing by, Charles Ritz forward by Ernest Hemingway
3. The Fly and The Fish by John Atherton
4. & a double.....two books in one cover, The Year of the Angler & The Year of The Trout by, Steve Raymond
all books came outta the Bull Shoals library.....why they do what they do is beyond me.....but i'm to well raised to refuse. The cat who owns the tackle shop gets them for 50 cents or a dollar each when they sell books, and puts $10 prices tags on 'em............but he gladly accepts one bobbin per book instead.......sure as hell works for me. He's a pretty good fly tyer himself, and a guide when not in the shop. And he's also a professional auctioner.....i've seen him in action more than once.....cat knows how to raise money. i think in the beginning he figured he was gettin' over.......then he found out the bobbins don't cost me squat........ But he still stuck to our deal..........he's a born and raised Arkansas boy.....really good guy. GO HOGS!

Got a nice donation too.....

[BruceC]

Hi Mike,

Let me add my thanks for these wonderful plates. As a graphic designer, I appreciate the color correction work you did. It looks superb. I was fortunate enough to see the original Dr. Edgar Burke water color plates for Ray Bergman's Trout. They are painted on what is now an off white, brownish stock. Trying to rescan those to get them to look anything like the original printing would be a daunting task.

The first few flies that struck me were the Crane Fly and Spent Caddis. I've been playing with those 2 patterns for a while now and it's refreshing to see another take, especially from a historical standpoint.

http://www.brucecorwin.com/bc/Blog/Entr ... e_Fly.html

http://www.brucecorwin.com/bc/Blog/Entr ... addis.html

Thanks again, Mike.

PS... Thanks for the heads up on this Aaron!

[kanutripr]

I love old books. More for the artwork than the information most of the time. Thanks Mike!



Vicki

[Mike Connor]

QUOTE
The first few flies that struck me were the Crane Fly and Spent Caddis. I've been playing with those 2 patterns for a while now and it's refreshing to see another take, especially from a historical standpoint.

http://www.brucecorwin.com/bc/Blog/Entr ... e_Fly.html

http://www.brucecorwin.com/bc/Blog/Entr ... addis.html

Thanks again, Mike.
UNQUOTE

My pleasure, glad you found them useful. Nice stuff on your blog.

With regard to crane flies, this may be of interest to you, it's an article I wrote a long time ago on daddies;



This is a small crane fly. ( Family Tipulidae). Also commonly known as “Daddy Long Legs” , “Harry Long Legs” and various other names. Although mainly terrestrial, these often fall on water, and may be taken eagerly by the fish. There are some aquatic versions it seems, but they are little known. The larvae are known as “leatherjackets”, and are usually found in damp earth. The adults either sip nectar, or don´t feed at all. There is a large variety of these insects extant, in various sizes and colours. Often the target of “realistic” fly-dressers.

A large sparsely hackled spider type fly in the appropriate colour usually works well. When viewed from below, or the side, and especially when back-lit, segmentation and various colour patterns may be clearly seen on the body. Often regular yellow blotches and similar. But this varies massively. Flies dressed with definite segmentation and markings do seem to work better. The females have thicker abdomens than the males, ( eggs inside) and also a pointed ovipositor which looks like a stinger, but the flies are completely harmless. When drowned, or caught in the surface film, the legs usually trail backwards. Various “hoppers” and similar fly patterns can be very successful indeed. These flies may fall on to water in very large numbers, and can cause a general rise. The body of the fly in the picture is exactly 2cm from head to tail. The wingspan is 3cm. Of interest are the “halteres” “balancers” or “poisers” visible below the wings. These look like antennae with knobs.

QUOTE Halteres are homologous to, and evolved from, insect wings. The ancestral insect species had two pairs of wings (like most flying insect species today). In the Strepsiptera the forewings changed into halteres, while in the Diptera (flies, mosquitoes and gnats) the hindwings evolved into halteres. Halteres operate as vibrating structure gyroscopes: the vibrating halteres tend to maintain their plane of vibration, and if the body of the insect turns or changes direction in flight, a bending strain develops which the animal detects with sensory organs known as campaniform sensilla located at the base of the halteres. Halteres thus act as a balancing and guidance system, helping flies to perform their fast aerial acrobatics. They play an important role in stabilising the gaze of these insects during flight and also provide rapid feedback to wing-steering muscles to stabilise aerodynamic force moments. They are the equivalent of an aircraft's attitude indicator UNQUOTE ( Wikipedia)..

These are side and bottom views of the same insect shown above. Taken at slightly different angles and using separate light sources.






Yellow and light orange bodied artificials are often very successful, dark brown bodies less so, and this illustrates why. Before attempting to imitate such insects, one should always try and look at them from various angles, and also against the light. This also applies to duns and other insects. Orange, amber, and yellow hoppers of dubbed fur with black ribbing are often successful, as are bodies of yellow or orange vernille, sometimes even white, green, or light grey, with black LONGITUDINAL stripes, as in the natural. These can be easily applied with a fine pointed marker.This can make a big difference in terms of fish caught

This is one of my stand by patterns for various waters in summer. On some rivers, such flies will cause large fish to rise, which often ignore anything else.

The original reason for my discovering this was a bit silly really. I went to a still water with a friend, and when I got there I realised I had the wrong fly-boxes in my jacket. The odd thing was, he had one of my dark daddy flies in his box. He was using this, and getting one or two swirls, and the occasional fish, while I could do nothing at all with the beetle I was using because I really had nothing much else suitable. All I had was a box of river mayflies, and a few nymphs and beetles. There were quite a few various terrestrials on the water, but the fish were only taking the daddies. It was quite windy, and a steady stream of them was landing on the water where we were fishing, from the woods and fields behind us.

Finally, more or less in desperation, I tore the wings off a bright yellow extended body mayfly with a red game collar hackle, because it was the only fly I had in the right size, trimmed the hackle below the hook,and not holding out much hope, I gave it a try. I started getting a fish a chuck!

After having some fun for a while, I gave the fly to my friend, which proceeded to do the business for him as well, also at more or less a fish a chuck, and I wandered off with my bug net attached to the butt of my rod to catch a few flies, and try to discover why the fish were so mad for a yellow fly when all the daddies I could see looked dark brown!

I caught quite a few in various sizes, and proceeded to inspect them. Viewed from above they all looked a more or less uniform dark brown or dark greyish colour. But lo and behold, when I held them up to the light, they all without a single exception had light coloured bodies, mostly yellow, but some more of a cream colour.

Now I must be honest here, and admit that I had simply not known this beforehand, at least as far as daddies were concerned , although I knew many other flies had much lighter coloured underbodies. I had simply committed the cardinal sin of accepting what the various pattern books had to say. They all said the daddies had light to dark brown bodies! Many patterns use pheasant tail and similar stuff for the bodies. This is certainly why the majority of them don't work very well.

Up to now, I have caught several hundred of these flies, in a range of sizes, ( I don´t know the exact species, there are loads of them) even the ones that were flying around my house ( No idea how the buggers get in! ), and I have not found a single one with a light or dark brown underbody. They are ALL light coloured, with a predominance of yellow, often a very bright yellow, and all have stripes!

That evening after fishing I dressed a few using yellow vernille as an extended body with stripes from a dark brown marker, and a few using white vernille, also with stripes. Both myself and a couple of others have now tried these on a fair number of occasions, and we could do no wrong!

I have viewed and photographed a huge number of these things in the meantime, and I still can´t believe I could be stupid enough to take something like the colour of a fly on faith! Indeed, it was only after this incident that I realised I had never actually looked really closely at these insects before! The problem here is that these insects are "very well known", ask anybody what colour they are, and they will tell you they are light to dark brown. So it would also appear, unless you take the trouble to look at the sides and bottom in the right light! But it is simply not the case!

Indeed, this has also taught me something else, which is related, but the reason only became apparent after I discovered all this. One of my "tricks", which works very very often in summer and at the back end, when I can´t get a fish with some other tactics, I have used a large yellow mayfly, and got good fish. I am now convinced that this is because the fish take it for a daddy!

Not only that, it also explains why a pattern a very old friend of mine used with very considerable success, even when the flies it purports to imitate were not in evidence, or had been for quite some time, or were hardly very plentiful either! Indeed, I have caught fish on this pattern on streams where there are no mayflies! This will explain that;

Frank´s Mayflies



The two flies shown above are “Frank´s Specials”, which he used when Mayflies ( E.Danica etc) were hatching. They will also work as drowned dun imitations. The unusual thing about these patterns, is that they also work when nothing at all is hatching! Especially when manipulated. I have had these flies now for nearly forty years. Of course I dress and use copies of them. Frank was a bloke I knew in Yorkshire many years ago.

The first one is dressed as follows;
Hook: Size 12 long shank
Tail: Cock pheasant centre tail fibres 6 to 8.
Body: Pale cream wool
Rib: Gold wire.
Hackle 1 : Pale ginger furnace cock ( often now referred to as “Greenwell”)
Hackle 2: Mallard breast feather dyed yellow with picric acid.


The second is dressed on a shorter shank hook.
Tail: Cock Pheasant centre tail fibres 6 to 8
Body: Primrose floss silk
Rib: Gold wire
Body hackle: Red game cock
Front hackle: Mallard breast feather dyed yellow in picric acid.
Head: peacock herl.

They are very good imitations of daddies! Even to the long trailing tails, which look like trailing daddy legs! These apparently unrelated items have suddenly gelled.

The simple yellow vernille daddies I have made up have been extremely successful on the local rivers as well;



Now I am not saying this is a universal thing. There may well be some daddies with dark brown bodies, but of all the species I have examined there has not yet been a single one. I would be most interested in hearing from people in other localities about this, because I suspect it is indeed universal, and people are dressing these flies the wrong colour! All the pattern books I have checked specify light to dark brown, which is an absolutely lousy imitation!

It also actually confirms something that happened a long time ago now, but I never gave it much thought. A fly-dressing firm brought out some yellow plastic extended bodies, and quite a number of people used these for dressing daddies. The patterns were largely sniffed at by the cognoscenti as being far too light in colour, and the wrong colour as well. But the point is, the flies caught a lot of fish, and nobody could explain why! I am convinced that this explains it!

It would not surprise me at all to discover that quite a few of the Irish straddlebugs and similar stuff are also taken for daddies!

By the way, this is the first time I have mentioned this anywhere, and I don´t usually publish anything unless it has actually worked for quite a while and consistently, but these flies passed the hundred fish mark easily in the first week, and the other reasoning all fits with the available facts.

Regards and tight lines! ~ Mike Connor

[Mike Connor]

You can find info on the Vernille etc here;

http://www.wildfisher.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=4435.0

TL
MC

[willowhead]

Mike, as redundent as all the thank you's must be getting...........it's really the least we can do. So THANKX! again.

[Mike Connor]

Mike, as redundent as all the thank you's must be getting...........it's really the least we can do. So THANKX! again.

It's always nice to be thanked for something. I appreciate it.

TL
MC

[BruceC]

MIke,

Thanks for that terrific piece on Crane Flies. It filled in some blanks for me and I certainly appreciate you taking the time to post it.

Cheers,
Bruce C