Hi Byron,

Yes I'd probably put them in that category. I must admit I don't use them! Though I have odd times in the past, and they work well enough. Just to be clear they are a dry fly. I do tie them by the thousand for a shop, to be used on the Derbyshire streams where Piscator fished. They are a traditional fly there. I tend to use the more modern pattern from your side of the pond, the Griffith's Gnat. Just because I find it to not have the inherent weaknesses of the Double Badger. I believe that the two flies were a solution to a common problem. Which solution you use is personal preference.

In the thread you took the picture from I called these variations, well the picture is a variation of a variation. The weakness I mentioned above is that the point where these flies come apart is the rear hackle. The owner of the shop I tie them for, (who is also my first choice of casting instructor when I need help), has me tie them with a tag of thread. This tag is formed in the same way Scott formed the body on Carmichael's Indispensable. The tag end of the thread is left long enough to pull over the tag after it is formed with the tying thread. When the head is varnished (I use UV Resin these days purely for speed and convenience) this tag also gets a coat. It serves to protect the rear hackle, and make the fly last a little longer.

Your fly, reminds me of the Grayling Witch flies. Traditional dry flies for grayling from this side of the pond. Our traditional dry flies here tend not to use Grizzle (or cuckoo as it was traditionally called here). If you look at an imported Indian Grizzle cape you will see why. In dry fly sizes you will probably only get two bands of black on a grey white hackle. They will not be very well defined. It was only with the arrival of genetic hackle that grizzle became a popular colour of hackle. Badger on the other hand is has always been a well defined colour, even in the lower quality capes. The Greenwell's Glory uses a hackle with the black centre list, although in red game colour, where a badger is silver or gold. Known here by the Welsh name Coch-y-bohnddu (you may see many variations of the spelling of that, even the Welsh can not say for sure which is correct).

Your fly has given me an idea which I might just try out. Give me a moment I'll knock one up, that will be easier than trying to describe it.
Byron midge_0004.jpg Basically the same fly but the floss in the centre replaced with a blue/red macaw tail fibre. To accentuate the red I've used Fl. Fire Orange tying thread as well. (Sorry if it isn't up to the usual standard. I've been painting my home, and have misplaced my tying specks, so tied this blind.)

If a dry fly behaves as we have discussed, with the hackles vertical and near vertical to the water penetrating the surface, and the fly resting on the hackle fibres that are horizontal or near horizontal to the surface, I do not see what great difference a smaller rear hackle makes, so long as it is in a similar size range. I do not, in my commercial tying of Double Badgers, go to the trouble of sizing the hackle so precisely, and using one which is 1/4 of a size or less smaller than the front hackle, at the rear.

The Double Badger has served me very well over the years, in the form of regular income. I have probably tied more of them than any other single pattern. That many that my cruising speed for 100 Double Badgers is now sub 4 hours. (Even now I do not consider my tying to be fast, but deliberate. I do keep going and use every trick in the book to improve efficiency. Things like never leaving my vice empty while working on an order. Need a comfort break, or coffee? Go mid way through a fly, then, when you return, you pick up from where you left off, and are back into the process before the end of the fly.)

Cheers,
A.