Pale Watery Flymph

[letumgo]

Pale Watery Flymph
Hook - Mustad 9672 / Size 14
Thread - Pearsall's Gossamer Silk (Pale Gray)
Hackle - Hen Hackle (Dun) - Stripped on one side to reduce hackle bulk
Tail - Hen Hackle Fibers (Dun) - Small bundle of softer base fibers stripped from the hackle feather.
Abdomen - Kreinik Silk Dubbing (Pale Dun)
Throax - Kreinik Silk Dubbing (Dark Dun)

[Premerger]

I'd like to see this fly slip through the water Ray.
It must look like life itself. Very tasty!

[letumgo]

Not the prettiest of flies (tail has too many fibers, abdomen could be dubbed more tightly, fly should probably be tyed on a smaller hook), but it should fish okay. Nice to get back to the vise, after the holiday madness has quieted down a bit.

I am hoping the combination of the silk dubbing and silk tying thread will make this a translucent bodied fly. I played around a lot with silk dubbing last year and loved the look of the wet flies. This one hasn't been dunked yet.

As an example, here is a close-up photo of another tyed with silk dubbing and a different color silk counter-rib. Once the silk gets wet, it creates a juicy looking bug body.

[Bear007]

Nice Fly, its funny I was just playing gray silk dubbing on yellow silk thread.

[gingerdun]

Ray, This is a great interpretation of a classic.

Tie2fish has been prodding me to take a fresh look at my father's flies, asking me questions that required going back over photographs I've made. By coincidence, the Pale Watery showed up. Here it is:



A hallmark of Pete's tying, I can finally see clearly, is that he tapered his bodies into a point at each end. When shaping the eye with a whip finish, he was less concerned about its details, and more about the overall sculptural shape—and the double taper. Another thing that I've noticed is that his tail wraps almost always began directly above the barb. His bodies tended to reach their thickest point about mid-shank, although sometime it happened closer to the hackle.

I am not suggesting that you should try to make your fly look like this. Yours is magnificent. But I thought you might enjoy seeing a vintage example of the same pattern. The tippet in the eye says this was fished.

Lance

[letumgo]

Wayne - That is an interesting comment about trimming flies stream-side. I am reminded by a story told by Fran Betters (famous fly tyer from the Adirondacks). In his book "Fly Fishing - Fly Tying and Pattern Guide" (page 62/bottom of the page), he mentioned trimming with one of his mini-muddler minnow patterns.

He was fishing a particular section of the stream and he caught a 12" rainbow trout with a swollen abdomen. Fran decided to field dress the trout to examine the content of it's stomach. He found that the trout was stuffed with around 100 tiny sucker fry. After seeing this, he writes:

"I decided to try something a little different so I took my clippers and trimmed the wing back on the small muddler and did the same thing with the tail at the same time pulling off most of the hair - in effect, I had made a nymph out of the mini muddler and it looked much closer to what I had seen in the trout's stomach. When I resumed fishing that cloudy (July) afternoon, I preceded to catch trout right away and the rest of the afternoon I must have caught and released two dozen fish."

As soon as I read your comment, I was reminded of reading this paragraph. Your comment illustrates an important aspect of fishing. Careful observation and willingness to adapt to give fish what they want at the time.

[letumgo]

Lance - Thank you for posting the photo. Your comments about the detailed construction of the fly is fascinating. I found myself reading your description and examining the photo in greater detail. Wonderful stuff!

PS - I believe your father's fly is tyed onto the tippet with a Turle knot (the knot allows the leader to connect parallel with the shank). Pretty cool!





Sources:
Image 1 - Eaglespark.com
Image 2 - FlyFishingNetwork.org
Image 3 - GaryBorger.com

[Kelly L.]

Awesome flies posted on this thread. The knot info was interesting. I am knot challenged, so I don't think I will be trying that one...lol.

[redietz]

Awesome flies posted on this thread. The knot info was interesting. I am knot challenged, so I don't think I will be trying that one...lol.

It's actually a very easy knot to tie -- just thread the hook, tie a slip knot, and pass the fly through the slip knot. The ease is one of its virtues. (The other is that you have straight line connection to the shank of the hook.) One of the reasons we use turned up or turned down eyes is to help keep the loop of the knot behind the eye. The down side of the knot is that it doesn't hold as well in nylon leaders as it did in gut.

Although I hate to refer anything serious about fishing back to "The Movie", watch the "haunted by waters" scene at the very end of A River Runs Through It
Arnold Richardson (old man version of Norman) ties on a elk hair caddis using a Turle knot. I've always thought that this was nice touch because:

1) It's the knot that would have been used in the character's use (and was probably the knot Arnold Richardson used when he was a kid)
2) It a an appropriate knot for an elderly man with shaky hands, since it's easy to tie.

Haunted by waters

[tjd]

All,

This is a great series of posts. History, linking the past with new and updated techniques, thinking, and materials, and "tying" it all together with the Turle knot sequence. Interesting, informative, and inspirational.

I've never tried silk dubbing (and after going through many totes of assorted dubbing blends and furs on the hide last evening, I doubt that I need to. The photo of the wet fly certainly does look like something tasty. I was surprised that the dark hook shank didn't overpower the light color of the body. Is it tied over a tinsel underbody or painted?

Knots-I have fished the Turle, always with an TUE hook. I haven't in many years, and have "generally" gone to using an Orvis knot, a Non-Slip or Duncan Loop for most of my fishing. Only rarely is a Clinch knot used, mostly when tying a dropper strand to the bend of another hook.

Good stuff, everyone!

Best,

Tim