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Black Goldfinch

2014.12.02.kvitre.no.black_goldfinch

Hook: TMC 7999 #1/0
Thread: Sheer 14/0
Tag: UTC Oval Silver Medium, UNI-Floss Red
Tail: GP, Veniard Red Crow Substitute
Butt: Black Ostrich
Body: UNI-Floss Black
Rib: UNI-Mylar #10
Hackle: Whiting Black Rooster Cape
Throat: Harline Strung Guinea Natural
Wing: Turkey Yellow/Red, 3 GP toppings

The “Classic Salmon Fly Patterns” by Michael D. Radencich lists 5 variants of the Black Goldfinch. What I had closest material for was the Black Goldfinch No.1 and tied these two up for my salmon box. Still have some issues with mounting, but the real interesting exercise here was the mounting of 3 toppings over the wing. The GP toppings needed to sit correctly together and not flare out to the sides, to tell you: I spent some toppings to get these to sit ok, but a good exercise indeed!

 

2/0 10xl red & black streamers

2014.10.25.dryfly.me.red_black_streamer

Hook: Partridge Carrie Stevens Streamer #2/0 10xl
Thread: Sheer 14/0
Tag: Uni-Mylar
Tail: Golden Pheasant
Butt: Black Ostrich
Body: 3 layers of UNI-Floss White, Red/Black UNI-Floss
Rib: UNI-French, UNI Red/Black Floss
Wing: Whiting Cape – Black, Foxtail Cock Neck – Red
Shoulder: Harline Strung Guinea Natural, Jungle Cock feather, Veniard Red Crow Substitute, Jungle Cock

I really enjoy pushing the boundaries when it comes to tying flies, and this one is one of the bigger ones that I’ve tied! The 10xl Carrie Stevens streamer hook is massive to tie on and can give some challenges when it comes to planning the layout and finding the material that will stretch all the way to the end. The plan from the start was to mount these in a frame and put them on the wall, I didn’t have a pattern to go from, but was rather inspired from various images on google and some Carrie Stevens patterns to draw some knowledge from, besides that these two are a creation from my own mind, so what should I call them?

2014.10.25.dryfly.me.red_black_streamer2

I wanted to create something that popped out and had clean lines to look at, that’s where the two main feathers came from, the original plan was to have a read feather as the first feather on the second one but I didn’t have large enough to stretch to the end of the hook so I ended up with just changing the colors on the body for the second one. I like the lines it has and mounted together in a frame these two will be a good match to each other

2014.10.25.dryfly.me.red_black_streamer_togetherI do see some issues with the execution: the body floss is not as smooth as I would like, the guinea should have been pulled a little bit further towards the hook and the lines from the JC to the black feather is not in line. But this will be a exercise for the winter to get better on, I just need to get some more of these hooks since I’m almost out.