Sorry Sully, my argument truly is NOT with you. My argument is very much one with some ill-informed modern writers who have misconstrued the term "Variant" at best, and completely lost the historical context of this fly at worst. J. Edson Leonard in "Flies" says this about the Variant, a fly he lists under general categories of fly styles, like Bivisibles, Fore-and-Aft, etc.:

"The Variant is purely an American version of the dry fly...The Variant type is dressed with a hackle several sizes larger than regular...The neatest variants are tied with hackle-tip wings a little shorter thant the wings of a regular fly, cocked approximately midway between the position of the spent-wing and the upright. "

From a book that's only a couple of years old, Terry Hellekson also gets it right with this description of the fly type "Variant".

"Dr. William Baigent of England gave us the Variant design around 1875. Tha Variants are tied the same as spiders, with one exception-they have wings. Many prefer the Variants over the Spiders just for that reason, thinking that the fish may have some slight advantage from distant angles, and a wing might possibly make a difference."

Dick Stewart's Universal Fly Tying guide has the Variant listed under "Dry Fly hackle Variations", along with thorax, parachute, spider, full and sparse" and I could go along with that.

Dave Hughes in "Trout Flies" (1999) says this:

"Variants have overlength tails and ovesize hackles, and they imitate the impressions made by an insect's appendages dimpling the water rather than representing the insect itself".

Of course, the most famous Variant of all is Art Flick's Gray Fox Variant. I think this is where some of the confusion over the term Variant originates. I think people see this fly as a variation of Preston Jennings Gray Fox, which it most certainly is. I think they then assume that Variant in this case means variation, which it most certainly does not. In the words of Flick from "Master Fly Tying Guide":

"in all cases the hackle sizes are much larger thay would be if tied on a conventional dry fly. For example, if I were making the Variant on a size 12 hook, the hackles would be about the size or larger than they would be if I were making a size 8 or 6 regular fly. A size 18 Variant would have hackles the size that one would use on about a size 14 fly."

I could site many, many more examples from all sorts of fishing and tying literature to support the notion that the Variant is a type or style of fly, as is the parachute, thorax, bivisible, etc. Now I will say that I've seen several sources that call certain strains of hackle "variants", typically ones that are multicolored or stripped. That said, when referring to flies themselves, a Variant is a very specific fly type, and not simply any change to a known pattern. I hope this clears this up.

Eric