Viking Lars | Saturday, 11 September 2021
Do you know that old verse about how every winter is spent tying all the flies you need for next season? How the fly boxes presumably are empty at the end of the season and that once next seasons takes off, the boxes will be populated with nicely arranged rows of flies, arranged in order after when the hatches occur of the seasonal colours and sizes of the salmon flies.
This might be the case for some, some might be able to get it to work. I can do it to some degree if I set my mind to it, but once I’ve tied a certain number of flies of the same pattern/same size, my mind wanders and new ideas pop up. I like to get them out of my head as soon as possible, if nothing else then to get a version of the fly on the desk, so I can preserve my brilliant designs before then next one pushes the previous one of the my head :-).
But somehow I think I do most of my fly tying during the season. When needs arise, when new ideas pop up, which they do more frequently when you’re on the water, when conditions change unexpectedly and you need smaller, bigger or just different flies.
This is what happened a few weeks ago. I usually receive updates from friends fishing in Norway about conditions, catches, water levels etc. And my friend, Michael, was complaining about low water and too much sun, so the otherwise fresh grilse in the river were hard to catch.
Fresh in the river salmon tend to like blue and the clear water got me thinking about blue. There’s a tendency that salmon are more likely to strike the later they see the fly, so they have less reaction time. So blue and yet inconspicuous. Pearl and white it was and this is the fly that came out of those thoughts. For clear and low water they shouldn’t be too big, so this is just 5cm long. I can really see this racing across a river in low, clear water with fresh grilse.
And once this one was on my desk, I of course needed a few variants, then my friends wanted a handful and I tied a handful in two sizes for my own box. A great way to spend an evening or two, and to dull the worst nerves from not fishing Norway this year.
Pattern:
Thread: UNI 8/0, white.
Tube: Pro Sportfisher Nano Tube, clear.
Weight: Pro Sportfisher FlexiWeight, 6mm.
Underwing: A few strains of blue polar bear and blue Pro Sportfisher Marble Fox. A few strands of Crystal Flash.
1st hackle: White hen, stripped on one side for sparseness.
Overwing: Natural white/light grey Pro Sportfisher Marble Fox and a few strands of Crystal Flash.
2nd hackle: Light blue hen. stripped on one side for sparseness.
Eyes: Pro Sportfisher Gen3 synthetic jungle cock.
Head: Pro Sportfisher Ultra Sonic Disc, smallest size.
I hope I get to fish this fly next year! Not least because I can easily see it being very effective in larger sizes in higher water.
Have a great weekend!
Lars