Lunn’s Particular Text and photos by Luca Montanari
The sunset hours of a warm summer evening
generally represent the magical moment
for many fly anglers, especially for those
who use floating imitations. When the temperature
sinks, a myriad of bugs leave the places of diurnal
rest to begin the rituals of their wedding and the
deposition of their eggs. Ephemeras, Trichopteras and
Plecopteras assemble together in large groups on the
banks or the surface of the river, beginning a dance
that does not fail to excite the trout and grayling,
inducing them to rise in order to catch the small
animals which lie on the surface. Sometimes it may
seem that the entire river is “boiling.” The more
hungry fish can make their rises to an un-restrainable rhythm.
To catch similar adversaries, however, we must involve
ourselves in a quite demanding job. Despite the scarce
visibility and the abundance of food, the trout does
not seem to reduce its suspiciousness or attention in
choosing the single prey. Indeed, the situation in which
the fish shows to be more selective is often the one
that takes place in the darker hours of the day. This
will frequently lead to the defeat of the angler, who
is incapable of identifying which insect is really
interesting for the trout and then choose an appropriate
imitation.
Considering that it’s quite often Ephemeras that will
allure the fish in such circumstances, and in particular
spinner-stage insects that are floating on the surface,
the fisherman can put his confidence in a classic with
proved effectiveness, flies such as Lunn’ s Particular.
This fly was born around 1930 in England and became one
of the best artificials for fishing on the river Test.
Thanks to its ability to reproduce the shape and the particular
colour shadings of the Ephemerella ignita
and of some species of Baetis (Ephemeras that become
reddish in the last phase of their existence), it can be
used in many different situations, helping us, in some
cases, to attract the bigger and shrewder trout.
Materials List:
Hook: Partridge E1A size No.16 to No.14.
Thread: Red.
Tail: Fibres of a natural red neck hackle.
Body: Stem of a natural red neck hackle.
Wings: The tips of two blue dun neck hackles.
Hackle: Natural red neck hackle.
Instructions - Lunn’s Particular:
-
I take the first step of the building process of the Lunn’s Particular
by fixing the hook into the vice jaw and tie in the red thread on its
shank. This thread I use for nailing, over the bend, a tuft of
fibres stripped off from a large natural red hackle. The tails
so created must have a length approximately equivalent to the
hook shank. -
By removing all the fibres that cover the same hackle that
supplied me the material for the tails, I gain a clean stem for the
creation of the body.
- I place the lower extremity of the hackle stem over the two rear
thirds of the hook shank and I stop it with tightened wraps
of thread.
- Wrapping the stem along the hook portion covered by the
red thread, I now make the abdomen of my imitation.
- From a blue dun neck, I choose the tips of two wide
hackles and I place them over the middle section of the hook
interposed between the eye and the body, giving them a “V”
shape with crossed turns of thread. These wings must be
long, nearly the double of the abdomen. Next, I select, from a
natural red neck, two hackles that have the fibres as
long as the hook shank and I tie them in front of the body.
- Using a hackle plier on each hackle, one after the other,
I wrap the two hackles around the front part of the hook,
passing them behind and in front of the wing structure
to create a fluffy collar.
- Next I cut off the surplus of the hackles and I create the fly head
with some turns of the red thread, which is then finished
with a whip-finish.
- A light layer of glue uniformly distributed over the
head will prevent the thread from untying itself, increasing
the resistance of the Lunn’s Particular .
- My imitation can now be introduced into the fly box, ready
to be used during a summer evening, when I see a good
swarm of reddish Ephemeras on the river surface. ~ Luca
Montanari
Credits: This fly is from a collection of flies produced for the
Partridge of Redditch Limited website. We thank them for
use permission.
Lunn’s Particular is one of the 86 flies described in
Luca’s recent book entitled Flies - Mosche da pesca.
To get more information about it click
HERE,
or send an e-mail to
libri@edolimpia.it .
Although it’s written in Italian, it should be interesting
to many fly tiers due to the many excellent photographs.
Originally published December 23, 2002 on Fly Anglers Online by Luca Montanari.