Dark Watchet techniques?

[willowhead]

DANG!!! boy i'm glad i found this thread. CB, you've done it again..........

[hankaye]

CB, Howdy;

Did you not read this, or due to all of the knowledge we have floating around here, and we ALL do it, forget about this?

http://flymphforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1858

Staying one step ahead of us All... he is.

hank

[willowhead]

Bill Bailey, you just earned two free nights stay at the Swallows Nest for posting those links. Call to make reservations. PM for number.
Now to get all the drool off my keyboard................those books are gonna cost a fortune................... Saw a couple there i already have.....the Hardy Reel book.....and Where the Bright Rivers Meet (and i've only looked at the first page of the catalog so far.....Whew!).....next, will be Autumns on the Spey. i've been looking for it for a few years........and i'm going to order it right now. Uno Momento..... .............DANG, i was only able to reserve it because it's out of stock............. .................

[North Country Angler]

Here is a link to Dr. Andrew Herd's website:

http://www.flyfishinghistory.com/contents.htm

Bill

There perfect example of how not to dress a north country spider !!!! by someone who should know better.

[CreationBear]

There perfect example of how not to dress a north country spider !!!! by someone who should know better.

Interesting, would you elaborate? For myself, the one thing that caught my eye was that he winds the hackle on some flies clockwise and others counterclockwise...if Dr Herd is out there, there's one big bloke back in the States who's curious as to why.

[Jerry G]

CB you know I noticed the same thing. On the Watchet Mr. Herd does wrap the hackle counter clockwise. This is the fly that he stips the hackle barbs off one side of the feather. Now I can't say why he stipped that particular side of the feather, perhaps just a mistake on his part or perhaps the opposite side was damaged. Don't know however if you still want the convex side of the feather facing the hook eye as you wrap the options are pretty limited.

Regards, Jerry

[CreationBear]

CB you know I noticed the same thing

Ha...glad to know I wasn't imagining things. The only thing I could think of was that if you wrap the hen hackle toward you, you might can slip the thread in between fibers and not trap them against the hookshank as you tie down. Hopefully we'll get some more input on the mystery...

[North Country Angler]

Right then let’s start with his tying of Swarbrick’s Partridge;

1. If this pattern is indeed a spider the peacock herl head is always tied in first. However there is no real evidence to say the pattern is a spider, on the contrary Swarbrick states the fly is winged with the feather from between the shoulders of a partridge and that the legs are fur from a hares face. Clearly this is not a spider as the partridge hackle would be both wings and legs. There are many examples of winged flies of this nature which feature herled heads, wings and legs formed with fur. As an angling historian Andrew Herd should know this.
2. Spiders that generally have a thorax tied behind the hackle are what we call Lune patterns as they originate from an area around the River Lune and are mentioned in a book called the Lunesdale Angler. No Yorkshire spider pattern has this feature in their dressing. If as he states the dubbing is to imitate legs why didn’t he tease out some fibres to represent legs?
3. When tying the fly, Dr Herd should have tied in the herl and the hackle tip first and then gone down the body with the silk, remember these patterns were originally tied in the hands and so it is easier to trap the hackle tip in first then wind the silk down the shank, (Trust me I have tried!)
4. He states that the hackle should only be one to one and half turns. Sadly this is a modern myth! Anyone with any knowledge of North Country Spiders with inform you that this statement is erroneous and point to the several manuscripts of flies where the hackles are clearly more than one or two turns. Indeed Swarbrick and others never mention how many turns of hackle are needed.
5. Andrew Herd states that the “old Boys” used rods of 9”6’ to 10”. This is clearly flawed as many of the books about this form of fly fishing state quite categorically that rods of between 10” and 16” were used, indeed there are still many examples of these rods in angling collections throughout Yorkshire. Also his statements on how these patterns were used is clearly the ill-informed ramblings of someone who has never fished or looked at the historic methods of fishing these patterns.
6. Andrew herd states in relation to the peacock heads, that by the mid nineteenth peacock herl heads went out of fashion or were very rarely done. If this was the case why do a large number of spider patterns still have herl heads, if his argument is correct then the herl head would have died out over two hundred years ago and today be little more than a curio. I have a manuscript of North Country flies from 1848 where 74% have herl heads which equates to 48 flies!
7. How many wraps of silk has he taken in front of the herl head? I lost count at eleven! You can clearly see the silk before the herl head; this should never be seen in a North Country spider, as when tying a spider with a herl head the silk is finished behind the hackle. I have many examples of this style of dressing from flies by Lister, Brumfitt and others and all are finished behind the hackle. As an angling historian Andrew Herd should have researched this style of dressing.

The Watchet
1. If you have a closer look you will find his silk is past the hook barb, something that is frowned upon when dressing North Country spiders!
2. He has used his orange silk to trap in two lengths of purple and Orange silk and then taken his orange silk back down to the eye of the hook, leaving the two strands of silk at the tail of the fly to be dubbed and then wrapped down the eye of the hook. This is incorrect as the proper method is to bind down a length of purple silk with the orange silk and then to twist both the lightly dubbed silks and then wrap back up the hook shank. Remember these flies were dressed in the hand so it would have been easier to work with two treads of silk rather than three! And even today when using a vice it is easier to use just two silk threads rather than trapping in two and leaving the third at the eye of the hook.
3. The fly is very over dubbed! With unknown dubbing surely not water-rat of mole?
4. He strips one side of the Jackdaw feather, which some people take issue with however this is a practice that is common to people like Theakston, Bainbridge and others so I will let him get away with it! However his does state that the use of Jackdaw feather is quite common in North County flies. Another incorrect statement as Jackdaw is not that common a hackle in spider patterns. Again poor research!
5. He states that the Watchet has gone out of fashion! Another ridiculous statement! The Watchet series of flies have never gone out of fashion on our northern rivers and the Watchet in it various guises are regularly fished today and have always been so. Clearly Dr Herd does not fish the Dales Rivers.
6. Again too many wraps of silk at the whip finish!
7. Dr Herd states that Swarbrick is the first to list these patterns, not true! Magee in his book identifies Pilling as an earlier source of Yorkshire flies. Has Dr Herd not read Magee’s book?

Whilst I applaud Dr Herd’s efforts in trying to bring North Country spiders to a wider audience, I am sad to say many of his statements are little more than poorly researched and ill-informed nonsense. His skills at fly tying are I’m afraid also very poor to say the least.

[flyfishwithme]

You are right Bob,
It is an awful tying of a simple pattern. We need to get our book out (oops, yes that right folks it is finally coming mid next year) to dispel a whole lot of myths etc.

[CreationBear]

Much obliged, gents--much to mull over and you give me a chance to pose a question that might have gotten lost in a previous thread. What I was curious about is whether you consider "North Country Wets" a "living tradition;" i.e. are there regions in the UK where patterns are passed on, father-to-son as it were, or is it more of an antiquarian interest on your part? No value judgment implied: I'm just trying to get a feel for the angling culture in your part of the world.