Fiery Brown

Fiery Brown

Viking Lars | Saturday, 3 April 2021

If you want to open a heated debate, try discussing the colour fiery brown with other fly fishers. Most colours we can almost all agree on instantly. Blue - yes, a blue might be dark, light, dusty etc. (and discussion might become a little excited when a blue gets to dark it begins to go purple). Yellow? Most will a agree on what’s yellow and then we might begin betting when others would say dark yellow or light orange. We’d still share a pint afterwards and have a laugh.

Noooo, not so with fiery brown. Seasoned anglers who’ve shared all sorts of up and downs, even those who’ve pretended genuine happiness for the other when he or she has landed a big fish, will have a big falling out from which the friendship might never recover.

Well, that might be a bit of an overstatement, but there’s some truth in the matter in a sense. I don’t think there’s a colour where personal preference comes as much into play. It’s in its nature of course, because what’s a fiery brown? It’s a brown that’s more than brown - the name says something - it’s got some “glow” (in reality some red, orange and yellow - in proportions that only the brothers of a very secret society knows. So secret in fact that only two Knight’s Templars are known to have been inducted - so far).

In my quest (see, that’s how serious this is - the Grail… Easy business compared) for the (my?) perfect fiery brown, I quickly began worrying about my soul - had I unknowingly sold it to the Devil? Because I hit what I believe to be the perfect fiery brown in my first attempts (remember from last week, I had my friend Claus on phone? Maybe he’s in fact a Knight Templar?). A lovely reddish brown with a nice “glow” to it. I dyed marble fox and squirrel tail (which I bleached first) and by some (un?)holy intervention, I got it right.

I ended up dyeing multiple pieces while I was at it (who knows how soon you can loose your mojo), I now have enough for my hair winged Thunder & Lightnings, The Usuals, Pahtakorvas etc. And believe it or not, it’s a lot of fun and making specialty dyes also offers a grat opportunity for the old tradition of gifting and swapping fly tying materials with friends.

Have a great weekend!

Lars

PoD: Squirrel on the left; marble fox on the right.