I could type a thousand words to explain my argument for keeping it simple, hell my whole life has been based on simplicity. When I bought my condo I was ready to scrap the whole thing after learning what was involved with buying it. But taking a low key simple approach to things is not depriving yourself of what is good but it does teach you that you can be just as happy eating a cube steak as you are eating a tenderloin. I never saw the need for the outlandish. Spaghetti with meatballs and sauce, or plain spaghetti with butter. It's all good.
This simplicity thing applies to my fly tying. As you see in the first picture a soft-hackle fly that is sparse. This fly accounts for many of the trout I catch. Red silk thread body, hares mask thorax and a couple of turns of partridge hackle. Now the trout I catch must hold the same beliefs as I do. They don't need meatballs, butter is just fine.
"Royal Charlie"...I first saw this fly in Robert Smiths book The North Country Fly. I admired it very much when I first saw it. I don't know why it took me so long to tie it. An old pattern that is good to use in off colored water. Hook Firehole Barbless...Body, red silk...Rib, fine gold wire...Hackle, brownish tint partridge...Head, peacock herl.
I'm anxious to give it a try. Stay tuned.
I really enjoy the style of tying that you do Alan. Do you strip the barbs from one side of the hackle to keep them that sparse? I can never seem to get mine to look quite as good as your do.
ReplyDeleteAaron Y
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Aaron I do strip one side of the hackle on some of those NC spider patterns. The fly pictured here does not have one side stripped but is the full feather. Two turns of the feather.
Aaron, hooks used in some patterns also play a role in my use of one side of the feather being stripped. For example the Partridge L3AS Spider hook. This hook almost always looks and performs better with the one side stripped feather.
DeleteBeautiful simple fly! I look forward to hearing about what the trout think of it. In comparing the two flies that you shared here, the main difference appears to be the dubbed thorax versus the peacock herl head. Do you know of situations where one or the other (or both?) would be more attractive to the fish?
ReplyDeleteShawn
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Shawn I believe that peacock is a far superior material in attracting trout then hares mask. The problem is that peacock is so fragile. There are methods out there on enabling peacock to be stronger but I find it not to be. Using it is situations like at the head where it will not get chewed on is OK.
Excellent post! I will try this fly and check it out in Smith’s great book on North Country Flies. I always find it difficult to get the peacock herl heads right, any tips, and first or last in your tying sequence? Kevin
ReplyDeleteNed Zeppelin
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Kevin the peacock head is problematic. I tend to wrap it last in the tying sequence. I keep the number of turns to just two. Royal Charlie is on page 49.
Thank you for a great post Alan! As a person who loves the traditional style of fly fishing I find Robert Smith to be a fascinating guy. The flies he ties may be simple but as you probably know he devotes a lot of effort to accurately and exactly replicate the original North Country patterns. Doing so sometimes requires feathers from birds that are now protected, fortunately for us he often offers suggestions as to which modern substitutes should be used. Acquiring a large collection of vintage tying materials from estate sales, auctions and donations has provided him with the resources to be able to produce “true” versions of these classics. From his youtube post I know some of the skins in his collection are over 100 years old. Respect for tradition means he often must tie in a way that fly tyers today would consider “backwards” - tying in materials from the head and working to finish at the hook bend. Last Autumn here in Massachusetts I had a lot of success catching brooks and rainbows with a wonderful N.C. fly detailed in his book called a “Red Clock”. No exotic materials needed, just cock pheasant and interestingly It floats in the surface film in a peculiar way-
ReplyDeleteDean F
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Dean your points are well made. Many materials which are not available to us today can be substituted and quite frankly they are just as good. I saw the video of Smith tying the Red Clock and he does tie in the peacock first. I'll have to try that. Classics hold a place in fly fishing that must always be upheld.
Alan,
ReplyDeleteI am sure that soon we will see that beautiful fly again on your blog in the mouth of some brookie!
So go ahead and give "Royal Charlie" a chance.
Humberto
Achalabrookies
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Humberto hopefully that will happen. It's a pretty fly and should attract a brookie. When that happens I'll be glad to show it.