Quote Originally Posted by Jayatwork View Post
After thinking about it I wondered if it could have been a son of Bob Carmichael you were talking about, since his children would be pretty old by now too.

I know what you mean about the term "variant". When I first started fly fishing and heard about a fly being a variant, I assumed it was a variation of some other fly. Then I was told it was a style of fly with long hackle etc. Now when someone says a fly is a variant, they usually mean that it's a variation.
Jay,

In the context of flies, the word 'variant' has 2 grammatical functions and has 2 meanings.
1) It can serve as an adjective as in "That fly has a slightly different wing". - var?i?ant adjective \ˈver-ē-ənt\ : different in some way from others of the same kind.

2) It can serve as a proper noun as in the name of a specific fly pattern as in The Gray Fox Variant, Cream Variant, Dun Variant.

Now, let's see someone define 'dun', lol.