TMG improved

Tied the TMG (Teal, Macaw & Ginger) earlier this year for the first time. This one is reinforced with fine gold wire at the body for more durability. Have a nice Sunday!

On request by Jack Dennis here's a little more info on this pattern:

The Macaw quill body on this fly is derived from the Whitcraft, a spin off of the Adams created back in the 1940s by Don Martinez and Bob Carmichael. Read more about the Whitcraft in Mike Valla's wonderful book 'The Founding Flies'.

The macaw quill when wrapped gives a very intruiging pattern of blue and green (sometimes golden) shades. The quill from a Macaw wing feather is often used by salmon fly dressers. I named this fly with help of Clement Booth and Hendrik Wiegand the Teal Macaw & Ginger (TMG).

Wings: Teal flank feathers bunched & split

Body: Macaw quill & ribbed with fine gold wire

Tail: ginger hackle fibers

Hackle collar: Metz ginger hackle

Hook: vintage Mustad 94840 size 12

Al Troth's Elk hair Caddis

Al Troth’s Elk Hair Caddis from the book ‘The Art of the Trout Fly’ (Judith Dunham & Egmont van Dyck, 1988). This book showed me that fly tying can produce beautiful flies.

Personalised cape socks

The hackle companies are strangely reluctant to provide some spare zip lock bags...

André Frijlink of Frame Your Fly was kind enough to send me some zip lock bags that comes pretty close to the ones when you buy a cape or saddle. He also added some personalisation! 
Thanks André!

Vintage Metz capes

Sunday during the DAAFT meeting my friend Theo Bakelaar had some old Metz capes and saddles (‘commercial’ grade I think?) he wanted to get rid off. I picked up a dark barred ginger, cree and a barred dun.

They were very greasy so I gave them a warm dish washing soap bath. The barred ginger and especially the cree were very greasy. The fibers were matted when you bent the feather. The dun has the nicest hackles of the three. Nice dry and straight barbules.

These capes are quite different than what I’ve seen before. The smaller size feathers are very long and stems are flexible. But if you go up the cape and look at feathers for size 12 and 10 and larger the stems are very thick and stiff. Totally unusable for wrapping.

Gave the Cree and barred ginger a second wash. Also cut off the upper part of the cape which isn’t of any use. I could have kept that part for using on streamers etc. Especially the Cree looks much better. Almost no matting. The upper part will get used by another friend who will use them for tying bonefish flies so no part will get wasted.

Today after dinner I gave the old capes a swing on the vise. These old hackles are pretty darn nice! Thanks Theo!

Drying after the warm soap bath

It's okay but still some matting of the barbules

Barbules matting on the cree too

The barred dun already looks great: nice dry barbules

The dark barred ginger and cree got a second bath. I also got rid of the upper part of the cape

Less matting

The cree looks much better now

Cahill Quill (dark barred ginger hackle)

Fifty Degrees (barred dun hackle)

Grey Fox (dark barred ginger & cree mixed)