FLYMPH FORUM

Ruard,
Great additional information.
Jonathon Pickard says (1820 Lits of flies) "Dark Watchet, Orange silk and purple twisted, feather from a Jack daw neck, water rat lightly dubbed"
Mark,
Can you send me a PM about the process you went through to sharpen the picture?

Mark,

Apologies for butting in, but don't you think you went a bit too far with the sharpening. Looks unnatural to me as you posted.

Did you use a Sharpen filter, or Unsharpen? If the latter, which percentage?

Just curious.

Hans W

Hi Hans,
As you well know, monitors are all different, and the sharpening process is tricky because different monitors see the information differently. If I sharpen a photo on my computer, it is not going to look the same on yours unless both are set exactly the same or color corrected. My monitor is not one of the new ones. On the newer monitors, depending on the settings, it may very well look over-sharpened. Sorry!

Mark

regardless, its not a bad pick by any means, and that is a beautifully tied fly. Big kudos. Nicely tied. Thanks for sharing that. I especially like the trace of dub in the body and the feather selection. nicely done.

w

William Anderson wrote:regardless, its not a bad pick by any means, and that is a beautifully tied fly. Big kudos. Nicely tied. Thanks for sharing that. I especially like the trace of dub in the body and the feather selection. nicely done.

w

Thanks William.
Now I don't use beeswax at all or any dubbing wax. What I have used on this is a 'paraffin' wax. It is in a lipstick tube and I get it from music shops. I cam about that last year when my wife wanted to learn how to play a saxaphone. It stood still as a decoration until I took it back. But what came with it was this wonderful little lipstick holder with paraffin wax in it. So ' waste not want not'.....

Mark,

It was merely a comment and a question on the image, not criticism. What may look just right for you, may be different for me, or vice versa

Cheers,
Hans W

Absolutely, Hans! I used a sharpen filter in PhotoShop. Adjusted color and contrast as well. I know that sometime over-sharpening does not work very well, especially across different monitors.

The background is a little grainy, however the fly body and near hackles looked good to me. more in focus than the original posted by Philip.

Mark

letumgo wrote:Beautiful classic! It has been on my "To Tye" list for a while, but I (currently) lack a Jackdaw skin.

Pritt recommended coot as a sub.

Bob, yes he did and coot is often used as a substitute for Water Hen. In respect to the comparison with Jackdaw, coot is a little paler. In respect to Coot as a substituted for Waterhen, coot is a little darker. BUT, will the fish know any different? I suspect not.
I find it very interesting when I look at old dressing and then relate them to the patterns in the old books. There are some interesting irregularities. For example (a) only silk or thread is stated. It is only in Edmonds & Lee that Pearsall's is mentioned. People like Swarbrick, Lister etc probably would not have been wealthy enough to purchase specialist threads and would have likely used what was around the house. That is why I am not wedded to Pearsall's but I do understand it if you are a Edmonds & Lee disciple; (b) When I look at the few flies I have, the thread seems to be much finer than Pearsall's, that is why I use Uni Thread 8/0 and I would use finer if I could get hold of the right shades. Perhaps PIpers Silks may help. (c) The number of wraps of hackle also seems to be more than the so called "no more than 2 1/2 turns". I often wonder where this interpretation came from, certainly Edmonds & lee authorise it. However, I think this may have come from comments made by those in the early 1800's who stipulated the hackle to be less IN SOME CASES. I am prone to use up to 4 turns sometimes and I think that is better in larger hook sizes. We need to remember that most of the originators worked on estates and as such would not have had the means to only use a few feathers form a wing. Take for example the notion that there are only 5 suitable feathers on a Water Hen wing. What? the Water Hen would be almost extinct now (like the Dotterel) if that was the case. I think the old timers probably used as many of the feathers that were practical.
Interesting stuff and the soul of forums like this.

Philip -

I agree that the originators would have used what's at hand. I suspect, though, that the thread they had lying about was even thicker than Pearsall's, not thinner. Also, since they were tying on blind hooks, they may have wanted a big build-up of thread at the head anyway, just to make a clean transition to the snell. Some of the old recipes are pretty insistent about a head. Also, I wonder if the size of jackdaw feather was what they were looking for, rather than the exact color? They were tied on smaller hooks than, say, a waterhen bloa.