A Couple of Alpine/Tenkara flies

[DNicolson]

A couple of Alpines taken from the section on my site.
I found them not as easy as I expected.
The last time I tied something like these, was quite a few years ago, and they were
simpler flies.
The original recipes used nylon threads, I used silks of various manufacture,
or standard tying threads such as UniThread.
They are a bit rough around the hackle.
I don't suppose the fish will care.


Hook: Varivas 2200BL size 12


*Number 7 (Blue & Grouse)
Hackle : Grouse.
Body : Dark blue nylon.
Head : Orange fluorescent
nylon.
Hook : No 11 to 13.
Season : All season.




*Number 37 (Guinea & black)
Hackle : Guinea fowl.
Body : Black nylon.
Ribbing : A yellow ring near bottom
(lacquer).
Head : Black nylon.
Hook : No 11 to 13.
Season : Summer.

[willowhead]

Those are both REALLY cool Donald.....keep up the great work. Love 'em.

[michaelgmcgraw]

Great stuff as always Donald !

[letumgo]

I always love your flies Donald! Great stuff. I will give the Grouse and Blue pattern a try. William was kind enough to send me a spool of the blue (#7) silk.

[William Anderson]

Donald, those are awesome. They are a treat to see.

w

[hankaye]

Donald, Howdy;

Dang !!! Those are some good looking flys.

I like what you do with a bit of thread and a piece of feather...


hank

[DNicolson]

There are other silks out there other than Pearsall, for many years they were the only silk easily available.
With the coming of the internet, there are quite a few others, with larger ranges of colours.
I still like the Pearsall silk, but there is also YLI, easily available in the US, with a huge range
of colours. There are probably others just as useful. I used a blue from YLI for the Grouse and Blue.
I think the grouse hackle was a bit on the large size.
Here is some info on silk, although I like UniThread and several other threads as well.

http://donaldnicolson.webplus.net/page250.html

[willowhead]

There's no such thing as hackle that's to long.........specially when you stop and realize that the fish aren't the only thing to consider..........hackle that's to long.....is a non concept.

[CM_Stewart]

Nice flies. I particularly like the blue #7. Not many blue flies here, though a friend in Italy who fishes alpine spiders in the traditional Valsesian way keeps telling me to try them. Last year I only did once, near the end of the season, but quickly caught a nice 'bow. Will do more this year (and now have a supply of Pearsall's #7 to tie them with - thanks to daringduffer).

Will check out the YLI. Thank you Donald (again).

[tie2fish]

They are fun, aren't they Donald? You've done a great job with them, and it's nice to see someone experimenting with different materials on this ages-old pattern.