Viking Lars | Saturday, 1 January 2022
I hope you all had a safe and good New year's evening? We spent a quiet evening at home with he kids, had a nice tapas, a wonderful créme brûlée for dessert and just relaxed the rest of the evening.
Jack Gartside was a very influencial fly tier and fly fisher. Who doesn't know his Gurgler, for instance. I've caught hundreds of pike and perch on that fly.
Another Gartside-fly I really enjoy fishing is his Sparrow. I made a video for the Ahrex Hooks YouTube channel on my slight variant of the fly. If you're curious, check it out here. It's a really excellent fishing fly. I fish it both as a nymph and a wet fly
I recently had the thought to tie a small soft-hackle-style variant. It came out well - in fact, I'm quite pleased with it. It's easy enough to tie and if there's anything noteworthy about it, it's that I use ostrich herl for both the body and the head. This provides a little volume and a wonderful shimmering motion, triggered by even the slighest current or movement of the fly.
Here's the pattern:
Hook: Ahrex FW 580 10-14 (here #12).
Thread: UNI 8/0, tan.
Tail: Coq de Leon hen and two strands of Crystal Flash.
Rib: One strand of Crystal Flash.
Body: Natural grey ostrich.
Hackle: Coq de Leon hen hackle.
Head: Natural grey ostrich.
Simple enough to tie. I'm tying a couple of handfuls in different sizes for my boxes. I might add a more durable rib when I get some more hands-on fishing experience with it. Both the herl and the crystal flash are not the most durable.
Have a very Happy New Year!
Lars