My Version of a Mahogany Catskill Pattern

All about flies Fly Tying
1

This is my attempt at a Catskill Style Mahogany Dun.

I still fish Catskill style flies at times, but they are in a minority position in my fly boxes.

Let me know if this one qualifies as a Catskill style fly.

Thanks,
Byron

2

There are plenty of others more dedicated to the style than I, but:

  1. I don’t think biot was used as a body material back in the day. Fur and quills/hackle stems were generally used.
  2. The collar hackle looks short - less than the 1.5x to 2x standard. The collars were generally tied in a more sparse manner.
  3. There was usually a bare space just behind the eye. The theory is that the space was used to attach a turle knot. The practical effect was to move the wings and collars more towards the center of the hook which was believed to better support the fly in the raucous water of the Catskill region.
  4. After WWII at least, the Mustad 94840 was the hook generally used. That looks more like a Tiemco to me (longer body for the hook gape).

$0.02 from a non-expert.

But I’d fish it.

3

"This is my attempt at a Catskill Style Mahogany Dun.

I still fish Catskill style flies at times, but they are in a minority position in my fly boxes.

Let me know if this one qualifies as a Catskill style fly."(Byron)

Byron,

If you’re talking about the ‘Classic Catskill dry fly’, the short answer is - NO! . Oh, and this answer is based on almost every piece of literature written or quoted in the literature about that style, from Gordon to Holden to Bergman, Flick, Jennings, Atherton, Hewitt, Cross, Dettes, Darbee(his definition is generally used as the definitive word), Blades, Jorgensen, Valla, and so many others.
Nicely tyed fly though.

Allan

4

Couple views of my Western Mahogany Dun:

5

That’s as sexy as all get out.