|
Grey Fox Variant
By Niklas Dahlin
One
of the most significant characteristics of the Catskill style
dry flies is the split wing of wood duck. There are, however,
really nice patterns in the genre without the magical wing of
wood duck. Here we will learn a little of one of those patterns,
one of my personal favorites, the grey fox variant. The pattern
was created by Catskill celebrity Art Flick. The fly was of what
I heard one of the flies Flick had closest to his heart. Flick
tied the Grey Fox Variant to imitate the green drake in his
beloved Schoharie Creek. He says in his Streamside Guide, “So
far the most effective fly to fool large trout feeding on
natural green drake is a very large grey fox that has been tied
with good stiff hackles”.
Art Flick at his
vise
Many of those familiar
with the variant patterns think that it was Art Flick who
originated it however that is not entirely correct. Flick
learned of the pattern by his master Preston Jennings, author of
The Book of Trout Flies. Jennings’s book tells us that the
variants originally came from an English tier, Dr William
Baigent. So we could say that Baigent originated the pattern,
Jennings discovered it and finally Flick made it known to the
modern world by his book Stream side guide.
I meet the variant for
the first time in one of our Swedish fly tying legends, Lennart
Bergqvistīs book Flugbindning på mitt sätt (Flytying my way),
Bergqvist writes that his friend Paul Jorgensen told him to tie
some of the variants for an upcoming trip to the Catskills, he
didn’t like them at first but after a while he discovered it as
a great attractor pattern. At this time I was a beginner within
the world of fly-tying, and this fly had it all, I loved itīs
appearance and it was fairly easy to tie. I tied loads of these
and after a while all my flies had bodies of stripped hackle
stem. Actually this fly was the one that got me interested in
the Catskill style dry fly. I use these flies on both trout and
grayling, I like to tie them really small for the grayling, my
favorite is a size 18 gray fox variant, and the grayling love
them.
I tie my gray fox
variants with a slightly shorter hackle and tail than what Flick
did; I believe that the fly is better balanced this way. Flick
mixed light ginger, dark ginger and grizzly for hackle but I
used coachman brown mixed with grizzly, mostly because I don’t
have dark ginger. I fish the fly as free drifting as possible,
now and then I make it move that can sometimes trigger the fish
to strike, a great fly to use when thereīs low activity on the
surface. As some will notice I use a different way of hackling
this fly than what most traditional Catskill style tier’s do, I
tie in the hackle at the front and wrap it backwards, finishing
the fly by securing the hackle with the thread. This way I
belive that I get a slightly more durable hackle , this way also
give the fly a neater head.
An important issue with
making flies with hackle stem bodies is that you need a nice and
even foundation for the body. I use Textreme 8/0 that is thin,
strong and I can easily get it to lie flat on the hook. When
preparing a lighter shade hackle stem for the gray fox variant I
just rip the fibers from the stem, but when working with hackle
stem of color, like a natural brown/red hackle, I burn the
fibers away in a mix of bleach and water. If you rip off those
fibers some of the colors also disappear.
This is what you need to tie a
Grey Fox Variant, my way:
Hook: Partridge SLD
#12-18
Thread: Textreme 8/0 White
Tail: Spade hackle fibers Coachman Brown
Body: Stripped hackle stem ”Ginger”
Hackle: Cock cape Coachman Brown/Grizzly
1. Tie in your thread,
start 1/3 down from the eye of the hook, tie thread down to
where the bend of the hook starts.
2. Pick out 8-10 nice
stiff spade hackle fibers as tails and tie them in, make sure
they stay on the top of the hook. The tail need to be 2 times
the length of the hook. Wrap the thread up to where you tied in
your thread.
3. Tie in the stripped
hackle stem by wrapping your thread down again to the tail, make
sure you have a nice even underbody.
4. Wrap the hackle stem
in tight turns towards the point where we tied in the thread
from the beginning. I try to finish the hackle stem under the
hook, secure it with a couple of turns and make sure to cut the
excess close to the body to avoid too much bulk.
5. Measure the length of
your hackle feathers, 2-2,5 the hook gape. Tie in both of the
feathers just behind the hook of the eye. I tie it onto the hook
with an X winding which leaves the feathers in a 90 degrees
angle to the hook. I wrap the brown hackle first because of that
I make sure that that feather comes first. Cut excess when done.
6. Leave the thread
where the body starts.
7. First wrap the brown
feather, secure it with two wraps, and don’t cut waste yet.
8. Now wrap the Grizzly
feather, make sure that you hold it quite hard and really work
the feather through the brown hackle, and do not end the feather
at the same spot as the brown hackle that will give you
unnecessary bulk. Now make sure to spin your bobbin, we don’t
want a flat thread when working the thread through the hackle,
which will mess up the hackle. Now wrap your thread through the
hackle, again a good tension on the thread. When at the eye of
the hook make two knots with your whip finisher.
9. Now work with the
hackle, pull it too straight out those irritating fibers. Cut of
the ones who give you too much trouble.
10. Flick used lacquer
to seal his quill bodies, I use UV resin instead which gives me
much better control, less smell and dries instantly.
Text and photos by Niklas Dahlin ©
2013
Welcome to visit Niklas Blogg
http://mulhonken.blogspot.se |
