End of 2021, welcome 2022

Another year is ending. Can't remember years going so fast like during the pandemic.

What shall the new year bring?

Snowshoe-Kill, a lazy Sunday tie

This Sunday afternoon I used Snowshoe rabbit foot hair for the wing & Red Fox fur for body. Does this make the fly a ‘Snowshoe-kill’?... 😁

Making of the Dette fly frame (II)

I acquired 11 traditional Catskill dry flies tied by the Dettes a few years ago. Getting them framed by the right craftsman was a no brainer. It took a while but we're almost getting there.

We chose the type and color of the frame, the picture to go with it and the positioning of the flies. I looked for a picture of the Dette's that wasn't used in so many articles, books and other frames but didn't succeed. Having an uneven number of flies meant some (symmetrical) lay out was not going to give a nice result.

At second glance there are a few irregular spacing, so more fine-tuning is needed. These wonderful flies deserve the best we can do. Hopefully we can hang it up before this (another) crazy year ends!

Update May 23, 2022:

See the final result!

Austin Mac Francis

Last week we heard the sad news of the passing of Austin 'Mac' Francis, mostly known as the author of Catskill Fly Tier, Catskill Rivers and Land of Little Rivers.

Austin Francis became an expert on the history of fly fishing in the Catskills by accident. The importance of this very small area in the north eastern part of the United States had in the development of fly fishing and fly tying as we all know now can be read in his books.

I really enjoyed the book he did with Harry Darbee (he was working on a real biography about the Darbees, hopefully he had enough material so it could still be published).

The Land of the Little Rivers is in my opinion one of the finest books on the history of fly fishing in the Catskills. The pictures in the chapter about the history of the Catskill dry flies and its tiers are simply amazing. Due to the size of the book and the lay out it's also a wonderful coffee table book in its own right. I'm really bummed I didn't get a signed and personalised copy of the book*... 

A rare interview with Austin Francis:

*A thing to remember with other authors like Dave Whitlock, Mike Valla, etc.!

The Bashakill

This Bashakill, a fly Mike Valla came up with, ribbed with olive (as the original was tied) and red floss. 

Mike Valla says about this fly:

"... not to be confused with Bergman's similarly named dry fly--Basherkill. It has nothing to do with Bergman. As I wrote in books, it goes back to my 8th grade library, and (Larry) Koller's 'Treasury of Angling' book. My absolute favorite, since I was just getting into fly tying back then. He has a photo in his book of a large brook trout---taken at "Basha's Kill. I tied the pattern in honor of Koller."

More about the Bashakill can be read in Mike Valla’s book ‘The classic dry fly box’.

Bi-visible

The Bi-visible's first appearance seems to be in the 1920's. The first time in writing about the Bi-visible was by Edward Hewitt in his book 'Telling on the Trout' (1926) where he tells why he came up with the pattern:

"Dark colors are more visible to the trout from below than light colors, and, therefore, take more fish under most conditions and are more generally used. They are often, however, more difficult to see on the water than the lighter flies. This is the reason for my favorite design of fly which I call the Bi-Visible which consists of a palmer-tied brown hackle on the head of which is wound a small wisp of white hackle. The white resting against the brown becomes very visible in most lights to the angler; on the other hand, the trout see the brown hackle from below better than any other color used. This fly is by far the best of any I have yet seen for all species of trout and it is based on a sound physical principle."

What the Bi-Visible imitates, the opinions varies. Art Flick writes about the Bi-Visibles in his book 'New Streamside Guide' (1969) that it's an imitation of beetles but he isn't sure. In Ray Bergman's book 'Trout' (1938) there's a fly plate and a recipe to tie the Bi-Visible but no mention about the origins or what it imitates. Here is Hewitt's description of his Bi-Visible from his 1937 catalogue.

The Bi-Visible's roots clearly comes from an old pattern called the Palmer. First documented in the 1600s, also in Izaak Walton's 'The Compleat Angler'. The palmer or palmer-worm was already a well-established fly at that time, so it originated much earlier, probably in the 1500s. The tying technique of wrapping a hackle from the hook bend forward to the hook eye, Palmering, is used in a wide variety of wet and dry flies (Woolly Bugger, Elk hair caddis and Stimulator for instance). I found an article about the origins of the Palmer flies in a 1976 issue of Fly Fisherman.

Bi-Visible tied by Winnie Dette

Back in the early 80's all I fished with were Palmers, basically a single shade (brown) version of the bi-visible to catch rudds in the ponds & channels. The Palmer was recommended by the late Dutch (fly) fishing author Kees Ketting. His books & articles were all we had back in the pre-internet days.

My bibles back in the early '80s...

The Catskill - how to tie it?

The Catskill. There seems to be some confusion how to tie it...
Maybe it's because it's Sunday morning 😁

Two recipes for the Catskill in Cross' book?

In the 'early years' fly patterns were never the same. Mary Orvis, daughter of founder Charles Orvis, acknowledged this (as being a mail order company) and wrote the book 'Favourite flies and their history' (1892) to standardise the patterns (both writing and drawn pictures of the flies) so customers know what they are getting when they order flies.

Whether fly tiers like Cross and later the Dette's etc. stuck to the recipe of a pattern or altered slightly due to (temporary) shortage of materials is possible but unfortunately we will never know.

Kelly Galloup on hackle

I don't know how and why but Kelly Galloup, more known for tying and fishing streamers, is now one of the largest sellers of (Whiting) hackle. The past 15 years or so the offering, in colors and shades, of Whiting has gone through the roof. And the sales are huge too. Oddly we don't see as much flies (both in the bins of fly shops as well as on social media) using hackle as much as one might expect with so many capes and saddles flying out the stores. 

If hackles get used, it seems to mostly end up on parachute dry flies. And the funny thing is, parachute hackle doesn't need this insane quality hackle we got today. In fact all it needs is two to three wraps to get the fly to float and give an impression of legs of the insect (they don't have zillion of them like barbules on hackles 😂).

Kelly recently started a very nice series of videos on explaining the various aspects of hackle. I think it's the best I've seen so far.

Here is part 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and  7.

Beaverkill on Sinterklaas day

The Beaverkill is one of the most recognizable classic Catskill dry flies. Yet it started as an English wet fly before transforming into a dry fly.

Mike Valla writes about the Beaverkill:

"... was cast upon Catskill waters long before the Dettes were even born. We know from his brochure fly pattern listing that William Warren Cone, in the 1880's, featured a pattern bearing that name. But historical texts also remind us that the Beaverkill was first tied around 1850. 

A Greene County, NY (a Catskill county) judge named Fitz James Fitch gave a similar British pattern to Harry Pritchard who first tied the fly. It was Fitch who named the fly after his beloved Beaverkill River. Harry Pritchard and his brother Thomas operated a sportings goods store at 50 Fulton St., in New York City. Harry was known as one of the greatest fly casters back in his time. Harold Hinsdill Smedley's classic book Fly Patterns and Their Origins (1944) tells us that "the fly as originally tied was similar to the present male or Mr. Beaverkill. Mr. Pritchard's pattern called for dressing with light body and gilt strip ribbing, brown hackle and mallard wings."

-The Beaverkill, in both wet and dry fly form, was also show cased in ca. 1920's Wm. Mills & Son catalogs. It is also interesting to note that as was common with many early Catskill trout flies---given their British influences---the pattern was tied with gray mallard fiber tails (not hackle barbs); wings were sometimes tied with blue heron, pidgeon or the more common mallard duck quill slips that we use today. In his Streamcraft (1917), George Parker Holden featured the Beaverkill by dressing: 

Wings: blue heron or slate colored wings of duck or pidgeon

Body: white silk

Hackle: brown

Tails: gray Mallard

And, of course, Rube Cross listed the pattern as we now love it; White body, gray wing, brown palmer hackle, brown hackle tail.

And, doubly of course, Mary Orvis Marbury (Favorite Flies and Their Histories) gives greatly expanded details concerning the pattern's history and Pritchard's story. (Plate #105 illustration). It's highly probable that Smedley obtained his information from Marbury's reference book. However---the illustration looks nothing like what we would call a "Beaverkill,"--check out the wings. And, that featured was a wet fly pattern."

From "Complete book of fresh water fishing" by P. Allen Parsons