A GUIDE TO NORTH COUNTRY FLIES AND HOW TO TIE THEM
I picked up a copy of this book in November 2009 when I attended the British Fly Fair International. I love to travel and shop for fly fishing or tying books, as not all books printed in other countries make it to the markets in the United States. Even though this primarily a pattern book, it has some keen insights into fly fishing and fly tying history as well as useful tips on fishing the imitation.
While I haven’t had the chance to read this book, I am a huge fan of North Country flies. I always have a box of spiders and sparse winged wets with me. If you haven’t fished the North Country flies, pick up a copy of this book and try them. They are as successful today as they were two hundred years ago.
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Soft hackles have bailed me out more than once this past winter. A soft hackle fly can be fished in the film as an emerger,dead drifted as a drowned fly or emerging nymph and on the rise or swing as a nymph or pupa swimming to the surface. They are a real work horse
Hi,
I’ve been a big fan of North Country Spiders for quite a few years now. They are a very sparse tie when tied traditionally, and it can take a bit of self control to not over do the hackle (i.e. strip one side of the feather, and then it’s just one to one and a half turns - honest!), the temptation is to add more, but two or three turns overloads the hackle. And dubbing on these is another exercise in restraint. Anyway, I’ve not got this book, but will start looking to see if I can find a copy.
Donald Nicolson of Scotland, intruded me to the Soft Hackle Wet Flies (Spiders), and i have been hooked ever since. His website http://www.dtnicolson.dial.pipex.com/ is one of the best I have seen dedicated to the Spiders of the North Country. I have all the Sylvester Nemes books, an well as the “Clyde Style Flies and their dressing” by John Reed. I have almost completely abandoned dressing dry flies, because of the effectiveness and simplicity of the North Country Wet Flies.
I have even progressed to dressing Spider Pattern on Salmon Hooks, for larger fish, because of the effectiveness of the hooks up eye keeping the hook below the water surface. Again, great results!
Hook, Thread, Hackle! Something that is so simple, yet so amazingly effective at catching fish.
It is a goo thing that old fly tying and fly fishing books are being reprinted for the public use, after years even centuries of being out of print, and most of the original publications are in private libraries, not available to the general public.
These reprints are worth the money spent, because the books and the writers who wrote them have proven that what the writer wrote was the truth and the flies are still effective today. ~Parnelli