Partridge & Yellow

[Bazzer69]

Thanks guys, I have some furnace, I’ve never seen Cochybondu, maybe if some has got some they could post a picture?
Any idea what year the right worshipful Greenwell invented the fly named after him? Is there a published dressing from him? I’ve had terrific success fishing the Buzzer hatch at Blagdon and Chew Valley lakes in Somerset in the uk. Mixed in with the Buzzers were a small number of Lake Olives which the Greenwells Glory is a dead ringer for. The trout would not take any buzzer imitations, but swallowed a GG with relish when fished just under the surface. Lake Olives emerge as a fully winged insect, maybe that’s why the Greenwells works so well.

[PhilA]

Any idea what year the right worshipful Greenwell invented the fly named after him? Is there a published dressing from him?

Origins of the Greenwell's Glory is well chronicled in several books, and the story is quite entertaining. Here is a short version online: https://www.swtu.org/2018/02/08/greenwe ... eed-style/

Concerning the hackle for a Greenwell's Glory, Frank Elder in The Book of the Hackle wrote that the original Greenwell's Glory was almost certainly tied with furnace hackle. That's because (i) Wright's original tie was a wet fly and would have been tied with hen hackle, and (ii) true coch-y-bonddu (black-red-black) apparently does not occur in hens, only in roosters. Both Elder and G.E.M. Skues wrote that they had never seen a coch-y-bonddu hen, only the related color furnace. Dave Roberts (Feather Emporium) agrees.

Interestingly, the inverse color pattern of coch-y-bonddu DOES exist in hens. The color is termed "kneecap" (red-black-red), and I believe that this cape from my stash is an example:

[Bazzer69]

Phil, thanks for the reference to the Greenwell and I’m sorry to take this thread away from the OP. In England almost all church records remain intact for hundreds of year. My family has got back as far as the 1400’s. The only reason they ended there is a nazi bomb hit the church were they were stored. So it strikes me that maybe in Durham the Canon Greenwell might have recorded the orginal dressing. The photo in your reference doesn’t look much like any Greenwells I’ve seen, artistic license?
Barry

[UC Steve]

Phil, that is an awesome cape. I have some welsumer hen capes of that same color. Now I know what to call it, Thanks.

Barry, don't worry for a second what direction the discussion takes. For me it's a fun ride. Your tale of fishing the Greenwells on a UK lake is intriguing.

[daringduffer]

I knew of the kneecap but had never seen one. A very experienced fly tier also said that coch-y-bondhu hen is almost non-existing but claimed to have had two capes during his life. Some golden and silver badger capes also have the black tips. I have a couple of those. You have to take a close look to notice.

dd

[PhilA]

The closest recipe I know of as the authentic original Greenwell's Glory is in Ewen Tod's 1903 book Wet-Fly Fishing Treated Methodically. Although the book was published 50 years after that fateful day on the River Tweed, Tod states that he obtained the pattern directly from Canon Greenwell himself. Many alternative patterns are found both before and after Tod's book. The Tod pattern calls for coch-y-bonddu hackle and, if true, it must have been rooster hackle, because I trust Frank Elder's assessment of coch-y-bonddu. Either that, or the confusion about furnace vs. coch-y-bonddu existed way back when the Greenwell's Glory was first conceived. The Coch-y-Bonddu fly itself originated in the 1700s, leaving plenty of time for confusion to set in.

From Wet-Fly Fishing Treated Methodically:

[Bazzer69]

The closest recipe I know of as the authentic original Greenwell's Glory is in Ewen Tod's 1903 book Wet-Fly Fishing Treated Methodically. Although the book was published 50 years after that fateful day on the River Tweed, Tod states that he obtained the pattern directly from Canon Greenwell himself. Many alternative patterns are found both before and after Tod's book. The Tod pattern calls for coch-y-bonddu hackle and, if true, it must have been rooster hackle, because I trust Frank Elder's assessment of coch-y-bonddu. Either that, or the confusion about furnace vs. coch-y-bonddu existed way back when the Greenwell's Glory was first conceived. The Coch-y-Bonddu fly itself originated in the 1700s, leaving plenty of time for confusion to set in.

From Wet-Fly Fishing Treated Methodically:

Phil, what a mine of useful information you are, wonderful.
Do you know how the wing would be tied? A split wing indicates a upright wing, on a wet fly? Cochybondu yet again, I assume it was plentiful back then as was the Spey chicken. I’ll accept a furnace hackle and a black marker pen!

Very many thanks for all you responses to my questions.

Barry

[Bazzer69]

The closest recipe I know of as the authentic original Greenwell's Glory is in Ewen Tod's 1903 book Wet-Fly Fishing Treated Methodically. Although the book was published 50 years after that fateful day on the River Tweed, Tod states that he obtained the pattern directly from Canon Greenwell himself. Many alternative patterns are found both before and after Tod's book. The Tod pattern calls for coch-y-bonddu hackle and, if true, it must have been rooster hackle, because I trust Frank Elder's assessment of coch-y-bonddu. Either that, or the confusion about furnace vs. coch-y-bonddu existed way back when the Greenwell's Glory was first conceived. The Coch-y-Bonddu fly itself originated in the 1700s, leaving plenty of time for confusion to set in.

From Wet-Fly Fishing Treated Methodically:

Phil, what a mine of useful information you are, wonderful.
Do you know how the wing would be tied? A split wing indicates a upright wing, on a wet fly? Cochybondu yet again, I assume it was plentiful back then as was the Spey chicken. I’ll accept a furnace hackle and a black marker pen!

Very many thanks for all you responses to my questions.

Barry

[daringduffer]

FURNACE - Has a very dark, black or blue dun list next to the stem and on the tips of the fibres. In between the dark list and the tips is a good color, usually a red, yellow, white or silver.. However! Nowadays the term “Furnace” means a hackle with black list and red tips!

Until 1885 the terms, “Furnace” and “Coch y bonddu” were used interchangeably for the same hackles, which were either black list/red tips, or black list/ red / black tips. Hofland was the first author to use the term “coch a bonddu” in 1839, and specified the colour as “red and black” Francis Francis also specified “A dark red hackle with a black streak up the middle”. A number of other authors made similar observations.

This meant that to that date, the hackle used to represent a Coch y Bonddu beetle was dark red with a black list, which is now universally referred to as “Furnace”.

Quote from a previous discussion.

See also viewtopic.php?f=11&t=6943&p=81672&hilit=furness#p81672

dd

[PhilA]

Do you know how the wing would be tied? A split wing indicates a upright wing, on a wet fly? Cochybondu yet again, I assume it was plentiful back then as was the Spey chicken.
Barry

Barry,
My understanding is that the original tie had divided wings, but whether they were upright or swept backwards seems ambiguous, at least to me. If you have access to either Trout Flies or A Dictionary of Trout Flies by Courtney Williams, he gives a lengthy and entertaining account of the origin of Greenwell's Glory and the whiskey-infused celebration of its success on the Tweed.

About the wings, Williams wrote, "There is reason to believe that in the original version, the yellow tying silk was well waxed with cobbler's wax to impart to the body a greenish-olive hue and that the wings, tied in a bunch and split, were more or less upright and not sloped back over the body as is now customary."

The "There is reason to believe..." part of that sentence seems to imply uncertainty about the exact wing placement to me. A traditional Tweed-style fly would be sparsely dressed with a thin swept-back wing.

Cheers,
Phil