Viking Lars | Saturday, 20 February 2016
Sorry about the late FP. I got caught up filtering last years crop of different snapses, and once you start that, it's hard to stop. I now have essence of walnut, bog myrtle, sloe and wormwood - all ready to be thinned down into the most delicious snapses once can imagine. Walnut is my favourite.
But - this FP is about something completely different. A few weekends ago, I did a comeplete purge of my fly boxes for salmon and sea trout (river). I simply had too many flies and too many boxes and not enough pockets. So I did a critical review and laid to one side those I had used the most, those that I have had best success with (a lot of common traits between those too piles :-), those that were experiements and those I simply haven't fished for years.
The favourites went into one box, and the rest were sorted from the stadnpoint that I need something black, something bright, something subdued and the Sunray Shadow.
So I'm down the flies in the pictures (not sure which "brown one" I'll be using - the brown/gold or the modern T&L). Most are present in more than one size and I do also have a box for experiments. From top to bottom, the flies are: Black & Silver, Mickey Finn, small borwn thing, T&L Variant and Sunray Shadow.
Maybe I should remember to see how many new flies have sneaked their way into the box at the end of the season - I know I'd like a red one, for instance. Just haven't found the right pattern yet (maybe a modified Red Sandy?).
So I cut the number of flies in half and the number of fly boxes down to three instead of six :-).
My all time favourite is of course my own version of the Black and Silver. Maybe it's time I updated the step-by-step and maybe even shot a video of the tying?
Have a great day!
Lars