I got an e-mail from Eric Austin last night. A few FAOL members & readers recall my trial-and-error goof-ups when I first became a member and entered a few Bulletin Board thread topics around March 22. Eric ordered my newly released fly tying DVD on classic wet flies, and also told me about seeing some of my work on the FAOL topic "Old Flies." This morning I went to this subject and viewed the current article by Eric (nice flies!) and was delighted to see many historic patterns receiving well-deserved attention.
Then out of curiosity I looked in the archives. More than a score of the old wet fly names such as the Trout Fin, Henshall, Scarlet Ibis, Cowdung, are classic wet flies tied by me personally with photos from Forgotten Flies (Complete Sportsman, April 2000).
I'm not completely vain, but the first thing I want to know when I look at a fly photo is "Who tied it?" Only one fly out of more than a dozen I viewed had my name listed as the tier.
This is about like reviewing a new book without revealing the author's name.
My viewpoint is this. When a writer presents factual information on the subject of fly patterns, I feel that the person who tied the sample should be given due credit.
And while I'm at it, with the recent resurging interest in classic wet flies, (HOORAY!) there are numerous myths being unknowingly perpetrated and unwittingly passed into the maintstream of fly tying information.
A few of these myths:
1) When I tie the classic wet flies at shows (as I always do), many people ask me, seemingly as if they already know the answer, "Are you using goose shoulder for the married wings?" They anticipate my affirmation.
"No, hardly ever," is my pat reply.
They're like, "Dude what?" They seem so surprised by my answer. I say let the truth be known.
1) Nearly ALL the old classic wet flies were tied with duck WING QUILL, not goose or swan SHOULDER. Tying wet flies with wings is a purely a matter of matching texture to texture. It's also about correctly selecting and sizing the materials used to the size of the hook. Duck wing quills were (and still are!) much better suited to the sizes of wet fly hooks, traditionally tied and sold on hook sizes #6 through #12. Goose wing quill is the next best substitute.
2) Goose shoulder, as my friend Stack Scoville put it, lacks the "backbone" to properly build the wet fly wing.
3) Only a scant handful of the 440 wet flies from Ray Bergman's book Trout (193 actually have goose shoulder in the wing. The lion's share of the remainder are tied with duck wing quill. The few exceptions that come to mind are the Silver Doctor, Cassard, Denison, Lake Edward, and Ferguson. That's because these patterns have waterfowl FLANK or brown mottled turkey quill in the wing. Remember my first statement - tying married wings (proficiently) is ALL about matching texture to texture.
Waterfowl flank feathers such as barred wood duck, teal, and brown mottled turkey, (while not actually a flank feather), all have very soft textured barbs. They marry well with goose shoulder because, matching texture to texture, they are all flank feathers, or in the case of the brown mottled turkey, have textures very close to that of waterfowl flank.
4) I was dismayed to see the hook sizes suggested by the author of some of the wet fly patterns listed in FAOL "Old Flies." (#10 to #16) Truth: I have a 1936 Weber catalog, listing 234 wet fly patterns in "standard sizes of #6 to #12. Other sizes available by special order." The old timers fished wets as large as #2 and #4. Remember, many of these flies were created in the glory days of trophy brook trout fishing.
Ask Andy Brasko about how well he did on the Beaverkill last October (all month) with a size #6 Captain.
5) Correct number of ribs on a standard wet fly pattern: EXACTLY FIVE. This is very important. Not set by me, but by the established standards of the day. This becomes critical in wet fly construction when tying patterns with both a rib AND a palmered hackle because the two ingredients must fit together like hand-in-glove.
And finally, one correction:
The "Old Flies" article on the Trout Fin (tyed by yours truly) lists the wrong color in the wing. It's narrow strips of white & black, married to ORANGE, not red as stated in the article.
There's more, but that's it for now. I have flies to tie.

Tight threads people!

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"Feed the good wolf."

[This message has been edited by Don Bastian (edited 30 March 2005).]