Catskill dry flies (I) - warming up

I haven't had the time nor the patience to sit down and tie a decent fly the past months. As I wrote earlier I have had this idea of tying some of the classic patterns called Catskill dry flies (like the Hendrickson) and get them framed. This evening I finally picked up the vice and tied an American March Brown. It turned out okay as a 'warming up fly', but still much improvements are to be made.

I ordered some 50 of the finest lemon woodduck flank feathers I could get my hands on. I just love the delicate structure of these feathers as well as the fine barring on them. Wooduck flank feathers are one of the essentials for many Catskill dries (e.g. Light Cahill, Hendrickson, American March Brown).

Another item that is hard to come by these days are LONG, STRAIGHT and STIFF spade hackles for tailing. The improvements made for hackling has been exceptional, but improvements of spade hackles for tailing are almost non exsistent. The ones you find in the upper parts (larger feathers) of a cape are too short and/or too curvey. By the way, the best spade hackles are said to be found in more cheaper chinese capes. If anyone still has some excellent spade hackles for tailing, PLEASE LET ME KNOW! These days the only thing that comes close are Coq the Leon hackles.

There are some things I need to consider when tying the flies:

* Tie on a straight eye hook (like the TMC 101) or a regular down eye hook? I kinda like the straight eye hooks for my dries: the fly looks much 'cleaner'.
* Tie off the head RIGHT BEHIND the hook eye or keep a little bare hook from to the eye to make room for a Turle knot?
* Use ALL the original materials or use substitutes (like dubbing, color, Darbee hackles etc.)?
* Absolute spot-on proportions, although personal preferences are allowed.
* Sparseness vs robustness. This is an interesting question. I'm going to experiment to see what looks best.

The pictures are taken with my Fujifilm E550 digital camera. I'm no way near as well equiped (especially good lighting!) as Hans so the quality isn't really great. Until I get to take the final flies to Hans we'll have to do it with this quality. I need to pick out which materials I have at this moment, try out different colors and types of materials to see which combination comes the most close to the original Catskill patterns. Well, we'll see what happens the next couple of weeks....


Update 3 november 2006
Here is the list of flies I will be tying:
* Adams
* Light Cahill
* Hendrickson
* American March Brown
* Red Quill
* . . . . . . (any suggestions?)

Casting illusions

Ever wondered why fly casting is so gracious? The fluid motion of the fly rod, the perfectly formed loop of the fly line and the slipping sound of the fly line through the guides. Most people wonder what makes a good cast a beautiful cast. It's the balanced equipment and C O N T R O L. Control of the fly rod, control of your casting motion and control of the whole casting process in your HEAD!

I've read and watched quite some books and videos on fly casting (Lefty Kreh, Joan Wulff, Ed Jawarowski, Doug Swisher, Mel Krieger). They all have one thing common: casting is approached as a physical movement of the casting arm. This sounds quite logical, but the thing is, casting (or any other physical activity) isn't just a physical movement but more of a translation of a mental setting.

Try this: try to walk on a one-brick wide side of the pavement while looking down. You'll notice that because you're focussing on the walking (one foot in front of the other), the whole walk looks wobbly. Now look far ahead and walk. The whole movement is much smoother. That's because your mind is set to go to the point you're looking at. Visualization is the name of this game.

This new, at least for me, approach of casting is an eye opener. After reading Jason Borger's book "Nature of fly casting" I got this "ahah!" moment. I never thought about casting this way, but I noticed that often I was 'practicing' the casting motion without holding a fly rod: visualization of the casting motion. The other innovative approach of Jason's book is to split the whole movement of a casting stroke in to modules. At first sight this looks like an over-scientification of the art of casting, but in fact it shows you the building blocks of a complex casting stroke. It's surprising to see how completely different casts share the same modules in certain phases of the casting stroke.

I think this book isn't a book for beginners, it's not a book just for casting experts either. But if you want to understand the fundamental reasons behind a perfectly executed cast, go have a look.

Genetic hackles

Every time I order a new cape or saddle I'm amazed how the hackle quality is ever improving. I recently ordered two rooster capes. A Pro grade Grizzly Variant from the Hebert Miner line and barred Ginger from the Whiting line. Both capes are from Whiting Farms. Without doubt the best hackles come from Whiting Farms*.

I still remember buying cheap indian capes in the 1980's as I couldn't believe the price one had to pay for a high quality Metz cape. Of course tying dry flies with those cheap indian hackles was nothing short of frustration. The sweet spot (if ever) on a hackle was barely an inch. The barb density was of course laughable! One of my friends showed me a Metz cape (I think it was a grade #2) and I understood that tying nice dry flies without a quality cape was impossible. Back then Metz (bought by Umpqua) was the best thing since sliced bread. I don't think I heard about the amazing quality of Hoffman hackles until the early 1990's.

It wasn't until my first visit to the US to fish in 1992 that I saw this legendary Hoffman saddle for the first time. This was amazing! A saddle hackle was at least 8 to 10 inches long and the sweet spot was almost as long as the whole hackle! The barb density was really out of this world: one could easily tie several dry flies from one hackle. It's hard to stay calm when one encounters so many different colors and types of Hoffman capes and saddles in a fly shop.

The Hebert hackle is said to have excellent coloration in natural colors brown, ginger and cream. Especially exceptional are the natural Duns, far better than the ones Hoffman had (now Whiting Farms). Here is an excellent article on the history of hackles and their originators. Very interesting!

I'll be tying some Catskill dry flies soon. I'm thinking about getting a bunch of classic Catskill dry flies framed. Maybe for myself or to give away to someone dear. Anyway, I need to gather the finest materials I need to end up with the best dry flies I can possibly tie. Keep posted!

Here is an excellent article about selecting the right hackle when tying dry flies (thank you Global Flyfisher).

Update June 2022:

* Obviously this is not the whole truth. Yes, Whiting has upped certain qualities of hackle to insane levels. Things like high barb count, length of the sweet spot and crazy small hackle sizes.

But some essential characteristics of good hackle are lost along the way. Gone are the feathers around the 'sweet spot area' of capes with good amount of sizes 12' and 10's (and even 8's), the structure of the barbules are often disappointing (soft and curved) and even greasy feathers with barbules matting!