BWO

[Ruard]

BWO
hook: TMC 101 #14
thread: Uni 8/0 yellow
body: thread tag and thorax dubbing in a loop corded (dubbing: 30% yellow antron, 30% hare tan, 40% hare olive)
hackle: black/dun from the base of the tail of a magpie.
head: fiber from an olive pheasanttail

Greeting

[letumgo]

Nice fly, Ruard. Thanks for including the info on the dubbing mix. Very helpful.

[William Anderson]

This goes to show what a variety of hackle lengths can do. This looks very effective for a number of reasons, but especially the mobility of the longer hackle. It seems kind of old school, but its been effective for hundreds of years so that's hard to argue with. I like the elongated head too. Again, it's counter to what I attempt when I sit at the vise, but it definitely has merit. Nice sparce body and a nice contrasting body/hackle combo. Thanks for posting this. It reminds me to loosen up and get out of my rut of the proportions that I typically tie.

W

[letumgo]

Well said, William.

[Ruard]

This goes to show what a variety of hackle lengths can do. This looks very effective for a number of reasons, but especially the mobility of the longer hackle. It seems kind of old school, but its been effective for hundreds of years so that's hard to argue with. I like the elongated head too. Again, it's counter to what I attempt when I sit at the vise, but it definitely has merit. Nice sparce body and a nice contrasting body/hackle combo. Thanks for posting this. It reminds me to loosen up and get out of my rut of the proportions that I typically tie.

W

Mostly I tie my soft hackles on Drennan Super specialist hooks. For the BWO I like a not so heavy one, I choosed the TMC 101. It was possible to make a longer body but that was out of proportion and I just had bought a magpie tail. The idea was to make the head of the magpie fibers, but they are to soft and I broke them several times. Then I saw the feathers on the root of the tail and I replaced the magpie fiber by an olive Pheasanttail fiber. The body was a combination of ideas from Leon Janssen in his book Wondervliegen and the way Hans uses the corded dubbing loop.

Thanks Ray and William for your feed back

Greeting

[flyfishwithme]

Nice tie Ruard,
The inclusion of magpie herl at the head was an original addition and quoted by Swarbrick in his manuscript. Sylvester Lister, the river keeper at Bolton Abbey on the Wharfe River (the home of hackled flies) also included it but a lot of other dressers did not. It is difficult to tie in and most of the older patterns which did use it were tied off BEHIND the hackle.
I tie a lot of my flies like Swarbrick and Lister but I have replaced the magpie with crow. A bit hardier and if tied in by the tip it has the same proportion.

[BobSmith]

Phil,
As far as I know Sylvester Lister was never the riverkeeper at Bolton Abbey, he was a tennant farmer who lived at Barden Tower. He was one of the founders of the Burnsall Angling Club which is now the Appletreewick, Barden & Burnsall Angling Club and undertook some part-time keeping duties for the club, until the club employed full time keepers. He is largely thought of as the grandfather of Wharfedale flyfishers due to the important part he played in the formative years of the Burnsall Club. A club who's members include Pritt, Walbran, Edmonds & Lee, Reg Righyni, Les Magee, Bob Smith and Phil Bailey (whoever they are!)The famous riverkeepers at Bolton Abbey are the Newboulds who continued the keeping duties until the 1970s. Brian Newbould who I believe was the last of the line died about 7 years ago and is pictured in Les Magee's book tying flies in his cottage at Storiths.