Jack Dennis

Jack Dennis shipped the Humpy's he tied for me in June 2021. I followed the tracking information and I saw the shipment arriving in The Netherlands but somehow it was returned back to Jack in North Carolina!..

This week the Humpy's and some add ons by Jack finally arrived. Jack also included the book Western Trout Fly Tying Manual, a bunch of DVDs and prints of tying the Royal Humpy with hand written notes. Thank you Jack!

Update April 19, 2022:

Jack wrote me back today:

"it sure took a while to get to you that I'm happy that you now have some originals, like many flies they have a sordid history especially if the fly is successful like the humpy. I could fill a book with all the people who thought they invented the fly but I give Jack Horner the nod for creating the Horner deer fly probably one of the first humpy style patterns.

The Goofus Bug name and style came from Montana and was actually tied quite differently in the early days. near as I can tell the humpy name came from Wyoming to many different anglers including a local Jackson hole fishing guide boots Allen who had signs on his building the home of the humpy. 

My contribution to the humpy was to add the Moose tail which I learned from Dan Bailey has a great tailing material. I believe the Royal humpy which I gave the name to the creation offer a more modern use of the humpy because of its visibility. it was a favorite of Lee Wulff's the marrying of two great flies. Originally the fly was tied with different colors such as badger Creek and others some with a mixture of grisly and Brown the true pattern was tied with grizzly saddles which were tough to get what it didn't do was a demand was so high for the fly it pushed hackle entrepreneurs's such as Henry Hoffman to develop strains of roosters that would produce incredible saddle hackle fly needed hackle to float properly. 

Hopefully this adds more to the legend. Jay humpy's for some of the best I've ever same kind is a true modern-day master. At 75 my skills are starting to leave me and am in awe of the newer tyers"

Fiddling with Humpy's

It has been a while I've fiddled with some Humpy's. Felt a bit rusty...

Salmon Fly Tying workshop

A lengthy (3 hours!) recording of a classic Salmon Fly Tying workshop that was held by a group of enthusiasts in the small town of Montagu, South Africa in 2017.

The video quality isn't great but the information shown is probably very interesting for anyone interested in tying full dressed salmon flies.

Adams Irresistible

I forgot what a pain in the behind tying an Adams Irresistible aka Rat Faced McDougall is 😆

PMD Last Chance Cripple

This emerger style fly has sparse hackle wraps as it should submerge half under the surface rather than float on top. I see so many with way too heavily wrapped hackles!

It's still March, right? 😄

March Brown

Del Mazza

Upside down Catskill

A sort of an upside down Catskill dry fly. Tied on a Partridge 15BN size 16.

We might need a name for this fly 🤔 😁

Sparse Grey Hackle

A nice video about Alfred W. Miller, better known as 'Sparse Grey Hackle'. He was a columnist for the Wall Street Journal and an author of several novels.

A brief history of the Catskills

Last week I gave a Zoom presentation about the history of the Catskills, the tiers and how much of fly fishing and tying as we know now originated in the Catskill region.

Watch the Youtube presentation below

Easy framing your flies

Here's a short video on how to frame your flies. Especially with flies with hackle collars the frame needs some depth to avoid the hackle getting crushed.

CDC Henryville Special

This fly was inspired by the Henryville Special.

The Henryville Special is supposed to originated from the 1930's!

I replaced the underbody and the palmer wraps with a single CDC feather wrapped forward with the straggly CDC fibers emulating the legs of the caddis. The CDC both adds floatation as well as movement to the fly.

Henryville Special tied by Winnie Dette

Here's a video how to tie the original Henryville Special

Ray Bergman's Yellow Spinner

What to do on a very wet Sunday afternoon? Enjoy a moment of history. 
A Ray Bergman’s Yellow Spinner from his monumental book ‘Trout’. Mike Valla also celebrates this fly in his book ‘The Classic Dry Fly Box' with many Catskill dry flies. I substituted the yellow dyed mallard flank feather with Mandrin flank feather.

Badger hackle

Vintage badger cape from Metz

Lazy Sunday tying

Another gray day this Sunday. Time for some lazy Sunday tying.

Yellow Partridge spider

Orange dun spider variant

Quill Gordon, as timeless a dry fly can be...

Mighty mouse

Currently residing in Austin, Texas

The craft of making Japanese calligraphy brushes

I watched this video and I see a lot of resemblance with fly tying. Picking out the best hackle feather, deer hair or wood duck flank feather is tedious but necessary for tying the best fly you can tie.

Unlike the art of making these calligraphy brushes is diminishing, we won't see fly tying going the same direction nor will there be lack of materials any soon, but just like the goat hair needed for the brushes, quality natural materials for fly tying will always go up in price as well.

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’ with many known and lesser known Catskill dry flies.