What an Honor

[JohnScott]

Just received in today's mail a packet of nine flies tied by Jeff Hamm, with detailed recipes, tying instructions, and fishing suggestions.

These flies are beautiful.



This is step one in an international collaboration - to see if Jeff's flies, tied for his New Zealand trout, can catch Cutthroat trout here in SE Idaho.

It really is an honor to be part of this challenge. Will do my best to hold up my end. Headed out tomorrow to one of my favorite cutthroat trout streams with only Jeff's flies.

Thanks Jeff.

John

[mashtom]

What a great idea, I can't wait to see the results. FAOL rules!!!!

[FishnDave]

Jeff's tying skills are exceptional!! Beautiful flies! John...are you SURE you wanna get those WET??

[JohnScott]

Jeff's tying skills are exceptional!! Beautiful flies! John...are you SURE you wanna get those WET??

Dave -

That's the deal. Jeff really wants to know if these will work here ( and so do I ), and I can't accomodate him without getting them wet.

The only problem is, if they do better than my usual flies, I'll have to consider learning a whole new approach to fly tying, invest in a bunch of materials, and spend a lot of time at the vice practicing !!

On the other hand, I did just START OVER, and my fly boxes are all empty, with one exception. So this is a great time to be in this experiment with Jeff.

John

[JeffHamm]

Hi John,

Glad the flies have arrived safe and sound! This is an interesting collaboration all in the name of science! ha! I've never had a chance to fish for cut throat, and with John's wonderfully written and documented fishing reports, this is my way of fishing vicariously through him. Anyway, below I've listed the names for the patterns as laid out in John's photo above:

Vanessa* --------- Ewe Wasp/Jock Scott ------ Hammlim Minnow*
Taihape Tickler ---- March Invicta* ------------- Red Setter
Water Cricket ----- Copper Dorothy ------------- Stewart's Dun Spider

The two with asterisks are my own patterns. The Vanessa is named after my wife, and was one I put together when tying up some salmon hairwing and featherwing patterns for when I next fish back home in Nova Scotia (next year I'm hoping).

The Hammlim Minnow produced my personal best (7 1/4 lbs brown trout) on the first day I used it. It's also one of my most productive lake flies, and has caught both browns and rainbows during daylight and night fishing.

The Ewe Wasp is the New Zealand name for a fly that is derived from the Jock Scott. It even calls for Jungle Cock cheeks, but I don't have any feathers small enough for these size 12 hooks. This fly is mentioned in some of the older books on NZ fishing (The Flies in My Hat by Greg Kelly is a good one).

The March Invicta is just a combination of the march brown and the Invicta. Dubbed hare's fur body, palmered hackle, etc. A nice buggy fly that has worked well for me. It's hard to call this my own pattern, but I've yet to come across a dressing that replicates it; though I'm sure it's been done.

The Copper Dorothy is one of a series. Basically, any fly tied with a grizzle hackle tied down along the hook shank, and with a grizzle hackle collar, is called a Dorothy. If the body is yellow, it's a yellow Dorothy, etc. Typcially, the tail is red, though I like blue on the copper ones. The only fish I've caught from Roto's Bend (my name) in the Waiteti stream was a 4lbs rainbow on a size 10 Copper Dorothy. Roto's Bend is often full of trout, but they are often very reluctant to take.

Red Setters are very popular in larger sizes fished in the lakes. You can change the front section to green for an Irish setter.

The Taihape Tickler (pronounced Tie-happy) is a pukeko style fly, where the wing is from a New Zealand Swamp hen. The blue has shown up nicely in John's photo, something I've never been able to do well. Basically, this was designed years ago by a fellow who combined the body of a mallard and claret iwth the wing from another popular NZ night fly, Craig's nighttime.

The Water cricket is the first pattern listed in Pritt's book and is one that has done me really well in some of the clear spring fed creeks. The Stewart's Dun spider is from the Practicle Angler, another old book from the 1800s on angling, which is not as well known as the black spider. Both of these are great flies fished upstream to fish taking just under the surface.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Thanks FishnDave!

To be honest, none of these patterns are tricky, they just take a bit of practice to get the proportions right. The tricky bits for the Ewe Wasp and the Vanessa is getting the topping to sit properly. I've only recently been adding toppings and it can be challenging. But, as with all things, when it works it there is a pleasant sense of accomplishment, coupled with the thought "but I can do better". The Red Setter, Copper Dorothy, and Taihape Tickler are really examples of "styles", that with simple changes of colour become different patterns. These "styles" are quite popular here in NZ. For example, the Red Setter, if tied with black squirrel tail and black hackles becomes one of the "fuzzy wuzzy series"; specifically an orange fuzzy wuzzy. If, however, you use grey squirrel tail and grizzle hackle, it would be one of the "dappled dogs" - an orange dapple dog. (Although some people argue that the dapple dogs must be tied with flourecent bodies, we won't be quite so pedantic on that point). There are hundreds of flies tied in the basic manner of the Dorothies. In particular a yellow Dorothy is a popular day time fly, while a red Dorothy is considered a good night fly). The New Zealand approach to feather wing streamers was to use a regular length hook and bind the wing down along the shank while in North America, longer hooks were used and the wing is only tied in at the head and left to stream free. Both are ways to try and combat the problem of the wing wrapping around the bend when you cast them. Probably the most popular pattern of this style would be Parson's Glory (red tuft tail, body yellow, rib silver, wing and hackle honey grizzle). Another really popular one is a Grey Ghost (not the Carrie Stevens pattern), which is a red tuft, silver body & rib, wing and hackle of grey hackle. The pukeko style flies have fewer patterns, and I know of only about 5 or 6. Pukeko also have black feathers, and most patterns use either the blue or the black. A feather from an English magpie could be used as a substitute for the black. In both cases, the wing usually requires 2 or 3 feathers to be laid in together. In small sizes (size 10 and under) these can be used as beetle immitations.

All sorts of patterns can be created by variations of body colour and what kind of feather you use for the hackle for the spiders. In some ways, these are trickiest of the lot because the temptation is to over dress them. In fact, the hackle on the Water Cricket is a bit much. However, as it is a starling feather, which the trout often damage when they take it, after a few fish it should be just right! A fly that only getts better as it gets worse! nice!

Anyway, thanks again for the compliments. I figure, if I can tie a reasonably neat example of these then anyone can. It really just takes practice. I also tie quite slowly, and make a concentrated effort to try and make them as neat as I can. I don't always succeed, but then, I don't post those ones either!

- Jeff

[Jeremy]

Wow, those are some fine looking ties! I also happen to like the looks of the irons they're tied on.

Well done Jeff. Very well done!

Jeremy.

[peregrines]

Wow!

Beautiful flies, and I really liked the stories behind them. Good luck with them, but it sure would be hard to actually tie one on and risk it's loss. But, it is in the name of science I suppose. Looking forward to the fishing report. I'm betting the cuts will fight each other to get to them. Great stuff, thanks for posting. John, you're a lucky man, and Jeff you're a heck of a tyer. Well done!

peregrines

[Ron Eagle Elk]

Jeff,

I can attest the the fish catching ability of the Water Cricket and Dun Spider. Both were go to flies for VEE and myself at the Idaho Fish-In. Casting a damp fly downstream to rising trout is great fun. The takes are splashy like with a dry fly, but very solid hookups, like swinging a wet fly. Incidentally, John, that's the way I fished your wet fly version of the October Caddis. Same great hook ups.

I managed to sacrifice a couple of your other flies to the water gods on the Selway while trying to dredge some big ones out of those deep blue holes.

The remainder, I'll be dressing copies of and fishing them.

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeremy,

Thanks. The top row hooks are Teimco tmc200R size 12. I spotted those when I was picking up some more spey hooks to tie salmon flies on and realised they would be perfect for tying trout sized versions. They are also good for stimulators. I've not fished any of these yet, so I'm not sure how heavy the hook is, so it may end up that a bit of weight will need to be added.

The other two rows are a New Zealand brand of hook, called Black Magic. I really like these hooks, they are good and strong, with a very small barb, and just generally nice to tie on.

- Jeff