Thrushes, Blackbirds and most other song birds have been long protected in the UK. Starlings were not. Many Local Authorities were plagued by thousands of them roosting on bridges, town halls (that really pissed them off) leaving behind lots and lots of bird excrement. Nobody cared how many skins w...

This was triggered of by a reference to Starling on a previous page. I thought I'd see how the Starling situation in the UK was these days. It looks like the ban on Starling has gone away. Idiots!! I had a look on Cookshill http://www.cookshill-flytying.co.uk/gsr.htm and found Golden Plover for sal...

I have been recently going through this original posting by Hans. I see that I was asked by quite a few people for copies of my article on Cutcliffe, if I missed anyone out, here it is on my web-site - http://donaldnicolson.webplus.net/page161.html Also more modern West Country flies - http://donal...

Traditionally here in UK, up-eyed hooks were for dry flies. Historically up-eyed hooks were the first eyed hooks on the market and they appeared at about the same time as flies specifically designed for dry fly fishing appeared. The traditional wet fly fishermen, who dressed on snelled hooks, ignor...

Hi Kirk, Something to remember is the type of hackle you are using on your wet-fly. We tend to think of hen hackle, which can be very soft, but many game bird hackles are quite stiff and don't need backing with a pronounced thorax. Also 'West Country' spiders use cock hackle (stiffish) but have fur...