A lot of Blue Charms from me this winter, this time it is (yet) another one, but now on tube.
After all of these different versions of Blue Charm on different hooks, styles and sizes I’m thinking about making a frame with 7-8 different versions to hang on the wall, what do you think?
Since I worked through some of this pattern on the double hook I need to get some singles done as well: I start on #1/0 and work myself down to #8 on the TMC7999 salmon hook, tying up 2 of each size so that I have some to choose from when I’m in the river.
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.
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.
One of the things to do this winter is to tie up some classics for fishing next year: since I have been tying up Green Highlander lately I thought I’d give it a go on a #1/0 hook, not just for display and practice but for practical use. The pattern is the same as I have visited before, but I did omit a couple of small things, and I might not be that exact when tying them in, but it is a very good practice since I have to marry the wings and mount them on the hook and get everything together. The one thing I did experiment a bit with was the length of the wing, so I have a idea on what I want this pattern to look like when I’m ready to swing it in front of a salmon next year!
To give you a idea of size:
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