I started reading “Tied in the hand” by Sven-Olov Hård yesterday (review and more about that book later) and was inspired when I got up this morning to do a variant of the Durham Ranger (not tied in hand though!). The Ranger pattern is one I will start out with when I start tying in hand: not that complex, doesn’t require that many materials and is general not that hard to tie once you get a couple of flies tied up.

This one is tied for fishing, so I’m not that worried about the rather large head, or the fact that the GP doesn’t sit 100%, but tying these variants up for fishing is a very good exercise for tying up presentation-class flies later on, so I’ll just keep at it until I get it right. I tied this one up with red sealwool and orange tippet in the wing instead of the original pattern, but I think the colors came together well for this fly.