Betters And Gartside

The longer I fish the more I come to rely on certain flies to get the job done. Looking back over the years most of my successful patterns have had in their material list a few materials that have made them so great. The materials also have been favorites of two very special fly tyers. Fran Betters and Jack Gartside two gentleman who created so many successful flies, flies that have a following world wide.

A favorite material of Fran Betters was the Australian opossum and which he dyed rusty orange. Quite a few of his patterns used this material as dubbing. Jack Gartside had a love of the ringneck pheasant. These feathers were used in so many of his patterns. So I took these materials and worked them together to make some "fish appeal" flies. The photo above shows the marabou of a hen pheasant. Most tyers bypass this insanely fish taker feather and choose to use only other feathers in the skin. Using these pheasant marabou feathers I create wings in several patterns...they work.

Now Mr. Betters dyed his possum rust orange, some of the hair came out "real" orange, and some not so. The not so has some nice features and when dubbed on a fly it creates a nice difference in the body.

This pattern uses an orange dubbed body. It does not incorporate a wing, only a soft hackle collar.

This pattern uses an orange dubbed body, with a light colored marabou wing. It features a soft hackle color of bleached starling.

This pattern features Jack's and Fran's materials in one fly. The body is a darker colored possum body, a dark colored marabou wing, and a pheasant feather for a collar.

You can see some of the materials, different ones at that here. One constant was the fact that Fran's favorite color thread was used.