Black Blae - Webster - Questions

[Otter]

Websters Iron Blue

"The black blae is dressed with the wing of the hen blackbird and a little down from the back of the water-mouse, or a small black hackle mixed with a little yellow mohair, and tied with black and yellow silk on a No. 1 hook. For the wing, "Ephemera" prefers a tomtit's wing-feather; Ronalds, a cormorant's wing, or the breast of the water-hen; Jackson, a wing of the water-hen: and these may make good imitations, for the wings of the natural insect vary slightly in depth of colour."

Anyone one got any idea on

1. Tied with black on yellow silk. Does this mean twisted, or yellow body , black head ?

2. or a small black hackle mixed with a little yellow mohair ??????

What I find most interesting here is that the colours are more in keeping with the true nature of iron blues that i am familar with than many modern dressing with crimson sik.

[Mike Connor]

No 6 Here;

http://www.archive.org/stream/anglerloo ... 2/mode/2up



( Image rotated and somewhat digitally enhanced. Unfortunately the colours are not very good in these plates).

http://www.archive.org/stream/anglerloo ... 8/mode/2up

To mix the hackle and mohair, tie your hackle in by the tip( starling is good ), at the back of the body ( towards the hook bend), dub the black tying silk with yellow mohair, now hold the dubbed silk and hackle together and twist a little. Wind in both together, stroking the fibres backwards, and tie off. As blackbird is very hard to come by use dark waterhen feather with a definite brown tinge.

You CAN twist the silks, after dubbing one of them, but as these are very small delicate flies, and dressed short, this is very clumsy and doesn't look very good. It is also hard to do with hackle and mohair.

INSTEAD of the above. Tie in a length of yellow silk at the tail using the black tying silk. ( You can also use purple, I fancy this is actually better, also a lot of people preferred a more orange silk to dub and used purple tying silk. Orange twisted with purple was also popular). Hold the yellow silk taut ( let it hang in hackle pliers for instance), dub the yellow silk lightly with water rat. ( You will doubtless have to use mole here, but mix in a little fine chestnut coloured fur), now rib the body with the dubbed yellow silk.

Patterns for this fly are legion! Some work well sometimes, but not always. Generally I use a black spider dressed with purple silk ( Stewart style). I don't know whether the orange or yellow silk and dubbing makes a lot of difference. It can also be quite hard to get the very delicate appearance on the dubbed flies, you only need tiny amounts of dubbing. I would advise tying the wings in first, completing the fly body, and then splitting the wings and finishing the head last.

Here are a few images of the natural;

http://favouriteflies.com/images/Iron%20Blue%20Dun.jpg

http://idisk.mac.com/stevekale/Public/E ... %20Dun.jpg

http://www.theessentialfly.com/user/fly ... -niger.jpg

No idea why people add crimson tags or use crimson silk. Backlit the body has an orange tinge.
TL
MC

[Mike Connor]

More pics of Baetis niger ;

http://www.google.de/search?q=baetis+ni ... 90&bih=858

http://matzlpage.de/data/media/1118/baetis_niger_1f.jpg

Baetis pumilus and Baetis mutis are very similar.

Some info; http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/stoke/hi/pe ... 780067.stm

TL
MC

[Otter]

Thanks Mike, I presume for the hackle we are looking at the utilising the shortest starling fibres we can get away with - resulting in a very short black back end and then the hackle and wings and black head.

aaagh the quest continues and more fun to be had.

I have had some success in IB hatches with a small dry, CDL tail, well waxed yellow silk (quite dark) and a small CDC (natural with brown tint ) wing pointing forward over the eye. (sort of shuttlecock style). This success was purely accidental, it had worked well for small spurwings a week or so earlier and was taking some fish on this particular morning though the number of spurwings coming off was quite small. When the blues started coming off, the river exploded with rising trout and the wee dry was taken with great confidence. This was a case of extreme good fortune as I had errered in over waxing the silk which left it a lot darker than intended. This success was repeated in lesser IB hatches and as can be expected, on occasion it failed miserably - hence the quest for alternatives to try, and that quest takes me subsurface as I am of a disposition to believe that this is more likely to yield a solution than fiddling with dry designs.

No idea why people add crimson tags or use crimson silk. Backlit the body has an orange tinge.
TL
MC

Agree there wholeheartedly - I can only assume that it may well be due to the relative scarcity of the natural and most casual anglers simply had not the opportunity or inclination to delve into it. Some colour blind individual decided for some reason that crimson silk matched the head and found that the pattern took a few fish.

Francis Francis in angling 1883, http://www.archive.org/details/angling00frangoog

"The natural insect has rather a prominent head, and eyes of a bright brown colour, and if you
like to take half a turn of reddish squirrel fur at the extreme shoulder it will improve the fly."

Of course reddish squirrel fur is more orange than red.

Did someone translate this into crimson silk as they had no red squirrel - god knows.

Mole being the substiute for water rat it became the body choice and so was born the mole and crimson - and I am sure more than you or I have scratched their heads wondering how this can be.

Like in all these things there can be local variation in colouration so observation is necessary, particularily when your pattern is being ignored.


I am going to try websters , both styles and also your recommendation of purple and black. Thaat should keep me busy for a season or three.

[Mike Connor]

There is no telling why some patterns are as they are. The vast majority are dressed to some pattern or other, and substitutions and various odd ideas have affected them over the years.

The jenny spinner has a prominent red/brown area at the rear, and considering that the silk darkens and changes colour somewhat, when wet it might be OK to use crimson silk for this. Never seen it on a dun;

http://www.first-nature.com/insects/eph ... uticus.php

( The taxonomic classifications and names vary a lot depending when they are from).

Mole is not a good substitute for water rat on its own. You have to mix in some chestnut brown fur ( this is the guard hair colour of water rat), or you wont get the orange/brown tinge you want. Also, contrary to popular opinion, these flies do not have hairy bodies. The dubbing is there to give the effect of translucence. It MUST be very fine especially on such small delicate flies. Very light touch dubbing with very fine fur is required.

If you use light purple silk and dubbed orange silk as a fine rib, you should be close. If I was dressing such a fly from scratch that is what I would be aiming for. Without the brown tinge, which starling also has if you pick the right feather, the flies are less effective. The same applies to the wings. The brown tinge is important.

As I already wrote, I do fine with a black spider using purple silk and a fine copper wire rib.

That is a very poor scan of "Angling", ( Google!), you need to look at a few ( you can check them online);

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... %20angling

This one is OK; http://www.archive.org/details/francisangling00franrich

http://www.archive.org/stream/francisan ... n+blue+dun

Also look at this;

http://www.archive.org/stream/bookonang ... 3/mode/2up

http://www.archive.org/details/bookonan ... 00franrich

TL
MC

[Mike Connor]

http://www.archive.org/stream/bookonang ... 2/mode/2up

[Mike Connor]

Digitally enhanced image;



TL
MC