Fly Swap

For the club fly swap I have tied Alan Bitchell's Bi Colour Nymph. It's a lovely simple pattern which produces an effective nymph that is pleasing to the eye. You need to tie a few to get your eye in as the pheasant tail that forms the thorax is brought down the back to form the tail, getting this right is tricky, in this example the tail is bit long.

The fly has been tied as follows:-

Thread - brown

Underbody - copper wire to suit

Body - tan rabbit dubbing

Back/Tail - golden pheasant tail

Rib - fine copper wire

Fly Fishing and Fly Tying Magazine Competition

Having been laid up with a cold for sometime and busy horse racing at Cheltenham last week, not much fly tying has been done.

I need to get my finger out and complete the flies for the first round of the Fly Fishing and Fly Tying Magazine Competition. Oddly I have tied the additional fly first. I have elected to tie (Rob's) Welsh Green Peter. It seemed a very straight forward fly, however getting the wing to lie at the correct angle proved troublesome. The fly is tied on a size 14 Klinkhamer using olive thread. The body is Arizona Synthetic Dubbing ribbed with silver tinsel. The tail is a small red feather and the wing tied from bronze mallard.

So on now to the Yellow Dancer.

I have been reading the The Floating Fly by Malcolm Greenhalgh. It's a good read, a nice mix between history and opinion.

BFFI 2008

I arrived back late yesterday after two days at the show. Once again it was a great show. I enjoyed watching and speaking with both Roy Christie and Chris Watson both of whom tie flies to catch fish. Chris's fly, pictured, is just fantastic. Roy as ever, was interesting to watch and listen too, you will always learn something.

I bought plenty this year including a nice furnace hackle and Malcolm Greenhalgh new book, The Floating Fly. One of the tyers had a silver badger hackle in a colour called champagne, it looked lovely, but I never found one at the show.