Forgotten Flies " The Clyde Style"

[Highlander]

The one book with the exception of John Reids Clyde Style Flies & Their Dressing that defines the genre is

"Let's Fish The Clyde" by Robert C. Sharp

Unfortunately this is now out of print & good copies will command a high price. I was incredibly lucky to get a good signed copy by the author on E Bay for around $40 some years ago but I have seen them go for as much as $400. Myself I have been offered this amount for mine but I will never part with it well not till I depart this world for the big loch in the sky but hopefully not in the near future & even then I will pass it on to someone that cares as much as me about the"old stuff"
Tight Lines

[Gandolf]

Hi Alan,

Good to see your writings about wet flies. As always it is a pleasure to get to read such.

Dave Hughes, in his "Western Streamside Guide" mentions in one section of the book, that his experience is wet flies can be much more effective than dry flies, depending on the fishing conditions, of course. The fly he put in that section of the book is a standard soft hackle.

I am currently tying a set of drys for a close friends son, who is slowly becoming more of a fly fisherman. Friend Kevin has been attempting to wed him from the spinning rod for years, and has made good progress toward that end. Kev and I both have used only fly rods for many years.

At any rate, Kev is tying the nymphs, and I am tying the dries for his son for this spring and summer, and we both need to step up the pace of tying to have them ready for him for this spring. However, your post has brought the thought to mind of tying at least a few wets for him. I need to tie some for myself as well, as my small basic set of wet flies is getting a wee bit thin, and needs to be renewed and added to with some "new" patterns. "New" to my box that is, as I think most of them will be ones you and others have written about for many years.

I do tie my own innovative patterns from time to time, but not often. On those very rare occassions when I tie something new it is almost always to match a specific insect I have seen at a specific time. Even at those times I would guess what I end up tying is not really something new, but rather almost identical to something tied by another tier in the past. I'm of the view that many "tried and true" patterns have been tied for many years, and in the case of many of the traditional wets, for more than a century. These have stood the test of time, and me thinks that the chance of tying something "new and better" than the "tried and true" is pretty slim.

At any rate, nice to read.

Thanks and regards,

Gandolf