FLYMPH FORUM

William Anderson wrote:

daringduffer wrote:

I have no doubt after seeing John Shaner's collection, my tying will shift a bit.

William,

When you find the time, would you please elaborate ein wenig on this? To me, these flies shows passion. I have deliberately been overdressing a few flies lately, with the intention to try how they fish compared to sparser ones. They are caddis pupa patterns (turmeric cat's underfur and two turns of full woodcock hackle). I will try them along with comparable skinny flies. Since they will fish att different depths due to floating/sinking properties it will be difficult to draw any conclusions - at least for me. Some people are able to draw conclusions out of nothing. I lack that capacity.

dd

Stefan, my comment about John's collection was only was we've all seen in the color plates and pics of historic flies tied with longer hackles and different types of hackles for different behaviors. I haven't had any issues with effectiveness using the flies I've tied over the past several years, but getting to see so many vintage flies and images with their hackles standing perpendicular to the shank for even forward a bit, and with lengths that extend well beyond the hook bend, I'll probably add some of these to my boxes as well, just for comparison sake. Their must be something to the proportions used when such attention to detail was given to every other aspect of the designs. Just something else to fool around with.

I didn't have any luck with the skimpy flies yesterday (primrose and honey dun Stewarts spider) , but it could have had everything to do with the conditions. Nothing worked well, so I wouldn't make any conclusions based on yesterday's outing either.

w

letumgo wrote:Stefan - Lance took many photos of the Rodger Woolley flies in John Shaner's collection. I hope Lance gets a chance to share his photos with us, after he finishes working on his book.