Allys Shrimp – Singlehook

Posted on 25 December, 2014 by Håvard Eide 7999 french gp hen keough orange saddle tmc uni

Hook: TMC 7999 #4
Thread: UNI 6/0 Red
Tail: Orange synthetic that I had around
Body: UNI-Floss first half red, second half black
Rib: UNI-French: Oval Medium
Wing: GP Tippet Orange
Hackle: Keough Hen Saddle Orange

Another classic fly for salmon and seatrout, I got a orange hen saddle not long ago and I figured that it would fit perfectly with the allys shrimp. Will tie this up on some different sizes and on tube, but for now it is back to the holiday season and other things than flytying for a bit.

Sunturn Spey

Posted on 21 December, 201421 December, 2014 by Håvard Eide alec jackson dubbing duck fly co foxtail french fur hen heron lagartun mallard mylar nøgne ø oval rooster seal spey uni veniard

Hook: Alec Jackson Spey #1 1/2 Heavy Wire
Body: 1/3 Lagartun Black Silk Floss, 1/3 The Fly Co. Yellow Seals Fur, 1/3 The Fly Co. Red Seals Fur
Rib: UNI-Mylar Silver #10, UNI-French Oval Small Gold, UNI-Mylar #16 tied reverse over the hackle
Hackle: Foxtail Hen Neck Red, The Fly Co. Yellow Rooster Neck, Black Heron. Order: red, yellow and finally black in front
Wing: Veniard Mallard Duck Bronze Large

Today is winter solstice, and here in Norway this marks the coming of more daylight and the start of a journey towards the spring where we once again will get to go out and flyfish for trout and salmon. One of my favorite beer breweries here in Norway is Nøgne Ø, and they have a tradition to brew a batch of Sunturnbrew on this very day. It is dark, has lots of flavor, fits perfectly with my tastebuds and is a massive 11% alcohol!

Some years back I bought some bottles to see how it matures, and I open one bottle every year, on winter solstice, the very day it was created. This batch was brewed back on 2010.21.12 and is batch number #573. Today I was inspired when I saw that the brewers are at it again and are creating another batch of this great beer! I sat down and thought about the taste, the label, the winter solstice and created this spey fly that I call “Sunturn Spey”, a homage to Nøgne Ø and their Sunturnbrew.

The main idea came from the white to yellow to red writing on the label, I also wanted to convey the darkness of both the beer and the time of the year that we have.

The flow of the hackle together with the seals fur dubbing represents the sun coming out of the darkness. I would like to get some clean Sunturnbrew labels and mount this fly in a frame together with it and send it to Grimstad to the brewers!

Detail from the body: the counter-wrap will ensure that the hackle stays in place

A double mallard wing on top:

I’m very happy with how this fly came out, and I could frame it, but the colors and shape of this fly makes it one that I will tie up a few of to have in my salmon box for when the summer comes!

Blue Charm Doubles

Posted on 21 December, 2014 by Håvard Eide blue blue charm gp laks salmon squirrel

More Blue Charm today, but this time on a Partridge Patriot #8 double hook. The more I tie on these small patriot hooks, the more I like them. I haven’t fished with them so I don’t have any experience on the hooking capability and durability if a larger fish is on, but the hook itself feels light but strong.

This late autumn and early winter has seen a lot of salmon patterns from my side: I tend to focus on one side of the fly tying at a time, and this time it is salmon. The thing with this is that you get to focus on one particular aspect of tying that later can be adapted to different styles or patterns. With the amount of salmon flies I put out here you would think I have done more salmon fishing than the 1 time I was after salmon this autumn, but I haven’t! I want to do more of this next year, and focusing on salmon flies this winter is one of those things I do to prepare myself for the river.

Durham Ranger Variant

Posted on 20 December, 2014 by Håvard Eide classic durham ranger laks ranger salmon

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.

Blue Charm

Posted on 19 December, 2014 by Håvard Eide 7999 blue floss fremch gp hen keough lagartun saddle silk squirrel tinsel tmc uni utc wapsi

Hook: TMC 7999 #2
Thread: UNI 6/0
Tag: UTC French Tinsel Medium, Lagartun Silk Floss
Tail: GP
Body: Lagartun French Silk Floss
Rib: UTC French Tinsel Medium
Throat: Keough Hen Saddle Blue
Wing: Wapsi Squirrel Tail Blue/Tan

The blue charm with squirrel tail is one that shows up a lot of places when you start looking at salmon patterns, I have done some of them earlier, but then with a rather stiff cock hackle. This week I got some hen saddle and two different colors of squirrel tail, so I tied up these to go in my salmon box.

The blue charm is a great pattern that can work for both salmon and seatrout, it is not a very hard pattern to tackle, but make sure that the squirrel is tied in well: it has quite the slick surface on the hairs – use a waxed thread or ensure that it is well locked in before tying off!

Salmon

Allys Shrimp – Singlehook

Sunturn Spey

Blue Charm Doubles

Durham Ranger Variant

Blue Charm

flyfisher.org sites

Last posts

Recent Comments

Categories

Choose Month

flyfisher.org

Sites