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
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