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Some Classic Wet Flies

20K views 78 replies 19 participants last post by  S Fontinalis 
#1 ·
I recently started tying these flies. Thought i'd share a few by way of an introduction.
I live in Philly, and fish the local streams and ponds, mostly for trout.
Regularly fish the upper Delaware during prime dry fly season, as well as Salmon River NY for steelhead.

Hope you like

Eunan

Dolly Varden

Watson's Fancy

Allerton

Babcock

Holberton

Irish Grouse

Trout Fin Set
 
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#30 ·
Couple from this weekend. Finished up all my size 6 hooks, so no more flies until my new batch arrives.

Given irish fever is sweeping the country (at least in philadelphia anyways) I tied the St Patrick, both the original Bergman recipe and a sword variant - the sword version is the one i see most often, and i understand why. The green tinge to the sword is much better than the herl, or at least the herl i have.

St Patrick (Variant)

St Patrick (Bergman)


Both together


Hoptacong


Lord Baltimore



Lady Grey
 
#31 ·
The St. Patrick, (sword version) reminds me of Alexandra (formerly Lady of the Lake). A lovely fly.

"The Alexandra, or Lady of the Lake, as it was then called, was introduced some time around 1860. It was re-named in honour of Princess Alexandra. It was such a popular and successful pattern that its use was literally banned on some waters. If it regained its popularity it would prove to be a very successful fly, as it still does to a few in the know!"

http://flyanglersonline.com/flytying/fotw/9798fotw.php
http://www.fish4flies.com/Wet/Winged/Alexandra

TC
 
#34 ·
Thanks for the comments. Once you get the hang of it, they pretty much tie themselves (slight exaggeration), but seriously, when the fundamentals are in place, with the selection of different patterns available (>400) its not hard to sit down at the vise and crank out 6 or seven of the same pattern, or different patterns.
The limit for me is my credit card limit and my budget, everyday i seem to find one with a material I dont have in stock!
 
#37 ·
Fontinalis,

In the Hoptacong and Lord Baltimore flies, is the jungle cock dressing on these flies called the "cheek" or the "shoulder". I'm leaning towards cheek, but obviously since I'm asking....
 
#40 ·
After viewing your ties I feel I need to leave a tip or something - we need a tip jar! love the simple picture set-up. thanks so much for sharing, they are truly works of "ART" welcome to the site, and I think I will be very glad you joined!
 
#42 ·
LOL I was bought a shirt from a friend that say's "will guide for food" because I always fished all my friends out of drifters for some 35 years and always said bring gas for the motor! meaning food for energy for me to row!
 
#48 ·
Not fished it yet. Don't really get to fish as often as id like so most of my tying is for fun. About 70% of the flies in my box never see water. That said I do hope too get out fishing in the nextweek or so. Someone else on here said the Irish grouse would be killer for cutties
 
#49 ·
Fontinalis,

I grew up 100 miles north of Philly near Hazelton and fished most of the Pocono Mountain streams and rivers, the Delaware in and around Hancock (say 20 miles either side of Hancock), the Lehigh above Jim Thorpe (when I left PA in 1978 at age 25 to move to Montana the Lehigh was still very badly poluted from just upstream of Jim Thorpe from acid mine drainage and the zinc works around Lehighton), Lizzard Creek, Yellow Breeches, Susquahanna (mainstem and North Branch near Berwick) for smallmouth, Fishing Creek out of Berwick, many small local streams in Luzerne and Skuylkill Counties, Penn's Creek, and others. I tied and fished a lot of those old featherwing wets when I learned how to tie flies at age 9 because dad loved fishing them, especially on 2 or 3 fly dropper rigs for browns and brookies.

Anyhow, your flies are well tied. And has been mentioned, the hardest part of tying married wing salmon flies is setting the wing. Believe it or not, you set a wing on a married wing salmon fly just like you set on on a featherwing wet. You just have a larger wing to work with due to them being tied on larger hooks. And don't worry about substitutes for rare feathers, subtitutes have been used since married wings were developed. Kelson, et all often made mention of substituting Kingfisher for the difficult to obtain blue chatterer.
 
#52 ·
I'd been avoiding the teal/mallard wing flies for a while as I could never get them to look right. Then i discovered they are stacked wings, with 3 layers on top of eachother. So, last night, I tied Abbey, the first fly listed in Bergmans book Trout, and i'm going to continue to tie the flies in the order they are listed as a small ongoing project.
Rather than list each fly here (as this thread may have kinda run it course), if anyone is interested to see the outcome of this project (hopefully the result will be all 10 plates framed) over the next year or so, you can check my blog from the link below - Bookmark it or follow it if you're a regular blog reader.

Finally thanks to all who've checked in here over the last few weeks and commented on the flies.

Here is Abbey
 
#53 ·
Another beautiful work of art, Fontinalis. Thank you for sharing.
Just a question. To my eye, the tail appears to be a tad longer than
I would have thought it should be. I would never presume to criticize
or question a much more talented person's prespective, but I ask anyway.
Does the pattern call for that, or was that your interpretation?
 
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