FLYMPH FORUM

As requested... variations on a theme

Rust Belt Spider (#14)


Ice Peacock & Furnace (#12)


Aaron

BTW The company name for the first two products (Black and Rust-Brown) is the Great Canadian Dubbing Company. The last one is Harelines Ice Peacock.

I'm really glad you had to repost. I missed these the first time around. Nice looking flies.

You know... We often tye a fly and it goes in the box and gets picked out now and again. Sometimes it's successful, but often just average in terms of it's fish catching ability. However, ever so often you come up with something that seems to get better and better as you go along. The "Rust Belt Spider" pictured above is becoming one of the latter sort.

I generally tye it with a ginger hackle fibre tail and on a wide gape hook these days, but I've found this to be an absolute winner when fished with a stroking "North Country" upstream technique in faster water--i.e. rod length leader, fan cast, short one to two second drifts/pulls, roll and recast. It's been a "killing" fly, but best when there's clearly surface insect activity. It also works down and across, but the upstream technique is a real producer. I've fiddled a little with the thread colour (ginger, pale yellow, taupe, et al.) and most seem to work as long as you keep it "in the family" colour wise.

Sorry for not contributing more lately, but my tying has generally been focused on replacing lost or straightened flies and not coming up with new and interesting varieties.

Aaron

Hi Aaron,
They look very useful. I'd fish those with a high expectation of feeling a pull not long after they hit the water.

I am tying similar kinds of patterns, in terms of them being palmered hackled - and fishing up and just a bit across on small streams, as it is for me. What hackle are you using? I am using genetic hen for these kind of patterns, by and large.

Andrew

Gorgeous flies, Aaron! I'd be hard pressed to pick a favorite. They are beautifully tyed.

Very nice: I'm curious, though, about your hackle--is that genetic hen or perhaps "Chinese" rooster? (I seem to remember you using the latter on some your ties... ) At any rate, I'm thinking what you describe as the "North Country" upstream technique might translate to my Tenkara fixation as well.

Top notch and very temping.

Mark

Howdy All;

I may have to stop checking the posts on this particular forum.

Folks keep looking at me funny like. Ya see, after I check-out someone's new pictures

I end up walking around with my lower jaw scrapping the ground and mumbling to myself

GREAT looking flies

Sorry all, this is just an old post I just bumped up. I've just been having such success with the first fly above that I wanted to revisit it.

The hackle is genetic furnace hen from (Charlie) Collins Hackle in New York. I picked up four of his hen pelts on e-bay about four years back. I suspect that they were probably seconds in that they weren't "perfectly" symmetrical, but they are top notch hackle. Oddly enough the furnace hackle used here is the "hardest" of the lot of the lot-- nice and webby in the centres, but a bit stiff at the tips. In spite of this it turns out a pretty good fly--at least the fish seem to like it.

Aaron

Excellent, thanks for elaborating--my freestoners here in the Southern Appalachia's are pretty high-gradient so I'm interested to see if feathers that are a bit stiffer than the norm will retain a bit more "flutter" in the heavier flow.