The Wet Conover

[Old Hat]

In secret I have been trying my hand at Catskill style dry flies. After returning from Roscoe with Valla's Tying Catskill Dries book I decided to go at it. Thoroughly enjoying it. However, my quality dry fly hackle is certainly lacking. Anyway, The Conover is one of the patterns that attracted my attention while reading the book. Just seamed like a quality searching pattern and easy enough to get a grasp of some of the basics. I am not one to cringe from taking patterns classic patterns and jumping fly style. I have often taken classic steelhead patterns and made wingless wets based on them. So here is The Wet Conover. The Conover dry is not supposed to have black tips, but I like tipped hackle on wets.

Hook: Mustad 3366B #14
Thread: Uni 8/0 Rusty Dun
Tail: 3 fibers from Golden Badger hen
Rib: x-fine gold braid
Body: a 50/50 mix of muskrat and red wool.
Hackle: Golden Badger hen

Wet Conover Fly.jpg (100.8 KiB) Viewed 4732 times

[letumgo]

Beautiful conversion! I bought some special red Conover blending yarn, from the Dette's, during my last visit to Roscoe. This pattern caught my eye as well.

[Old Hat]

Thanks Ray. Is that a Conover blend or just the red yarn they use? Either way I might have to try some just to get the right color. I was guessing here. I also had 3 different shades of muskrat so I just mixed them together. This pinch might have came out with a little too much red.

[letumgo]

It is red yarn, that was labeled "Conover Red". I bought it from Joe Fox (Mary Dette's grandson). The wool is chopped up and blended with natural muskrat fur (roughly 1/3rd red wool yarn to 2/3rds muskrat fur). Joe indicated that the guard hairs should be removed before blending.

[tie2fish]

That's beautiful, Carl.

[chase creek]

Beautiful fly, Carl. I have to agree with you about the hackle.
I think it gives the pattern that little "extra" kick.

[Ruard]

Very well done Carl. Could you give us the original receipt for the dry fly??

Shall we call this one the Old Hat Conover?

greeting

[William Anderson]

Carl, I'm curious about the original purpose (possible imitation) was for this body. Exceptional little wet fly. I'll have to put together some of this dubbing blend. Based on the general "red can't hurt" principle.

Nice tradition from such a beautiful dry, btw.

W

[Old Hat]

Thanks everyone. I do think this turned out a little too red. I am going to adjust my blend.

Ruard - To be honest, not really sure yet. I posted a picture of the dry in the Lodge with the description of materials I had. Please - not the Old Hat Conover

William - The purpose like many flies appears to be debatable. It attracted me as a good general searching pattern.

[redietz]

Pretty cool, and I'm betting it will prove effective. Put a yellow thread tag on it and it would look like a Tup's variant.