Cowdung

[Soft-hackle]

Another forum I frequent brought up the subject of this fly. I thought it might make an interesting topic, here. Anyone tie and fish a wingless version of said fly? We have cow pastures in proximity to certain runs on the Genny, and I have used a winged version with some success.

Mark

[Mataura mayfly]

That's one that might have some running for the pattern books.
I have not used nor tied one in a good long while and then it would have been a winged wet not wingless. It was a popular fly here and in Australia during the first half of last Century and then kind of fell from favour as a lot of wet fly patterns did.
We have a LOT of dairy cows around our trout rivers now and I have more luck with blowfly patterns. The Cowdung fly was used here as a beetle imitation and tied with a plump body.

[Soft-hackle]

Mataura,
That's interesting!

Mark

[hankaye]

Howdy All;

Got my intrest with the conversation, looked around abit and found this;

http://www.flyforums.co.uk/fly-tying-fo ... f-fly.html

hank

[Mataura mayfly]

Mataura,
That's interesting!

Mark

Mark, I woud be interested to see the pattern you are thinking of. I bet if I looked in six different books for a reference to this fly I could come up with six different recipe's.
Seems to be each country has it's own take on the pattern. An American tie differing from British, British again differing from a New Zealand fly........

[Soft-hackle]

Here's my version based on Leisenring's description, but slightly different in materials.



Hook: Standard wet fly 12-16
Thread: Orange
Hackle: Red-brown hen
Tag: Flat gold tinsel
Body: A mix of olive, yellow, tan, and orange rabbit fur. The overall appearance is olive-orange. This is dubbed Leisenring style.
Wing: Cinnamon Turkey

Mark

[William Anderson]

Mark, this is really nice. It seems to me to fit what I imagine the pattern to depict, and still carries a very consistent Libertone impression. Mike Connor once posted one of his very long posts on the Cowdung flies, the history, the naturals and thoughts on materials. I couldn't find it in a search, but it was a lot of information to consider. I wish I could find it. I might try to tie some of these up at some point. If in my lifetime I ever get wings to turn out as nice as these, I'll take a pic.

Cool post, Mark.

w

[hankaye]

Dub-ya, Howdy;

Maybe this is the post you were thinking about;

http://flymphforum.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... g&start=10

The above is page 2. Where he gets up to his usual thouroghness ...

hank

[Mataura mayfly]

Mark, that would make it No.7 pattern!
Nice looking wet of yours, most of the patterns I know of call for wool as the body material. Either dirty yellw/brown natural wool or pink toned woll from a ram's undersides.
I will get back to this with some more thorough descriptions and perhaps photos, but more pressing persuits today....... opening of the gamebird season here this morning and I have materials to gather!

Jeff.

[cicvara]

-I'm sorry. This is the wings.