Trusty Rusty is a suggested name:-
Hook: Standard wet 14 Barbless
Tail: Rusty Dun
Rib: Gold
Body: Light Hair Mask
Thorax: Rusty Brown
Hackle: Rusty Dun Hen
Hi Donald,
Weren’t you calling these patterns “nymphs” before?
I really like the look of that. Should produce the goods. Have you had a chance to fish it?
- Jeff
Exactly what is a flymph? A nymph with hackle?
My personal definition is " a non-winged emerger made of soft materials and meant to imitate an emerger - suggesting a live insect in its rise to the surface"
Taken from www.flymph.com
"*Vernon S. ?Pete? Hidy coined the term flymph. What is a flymph? A flymph is a hatching insect be it mayfly, caddisfly, midge, or stonefly that according to Pete Hidy is in the stage of metamorphosis ?changing from wingless nymphs to flies with wings?. These flies are historically fished with a across and downstream technique that allows the current to naturally swing and raise the fly up to the surface in front of a rising or holding fish in a manner that activates the soft hackle collar and body materials effectively imitating life in the ascending artificial fly. The attraction of these flies is that not only do they look natural but they behave natural as well. They have movement; they have the appearance of life.
*Real nymphs don?t roll over as they drift in the stream but a fly tied on a tippet will twist and turn. Thus as flymphs and shn?s are usually ?tied in the round?, meaning they don?t have a designated top or bottom, they look more natural to trout. A fly that is tied with a designated back such as a wingcase and underside can look fake if it rides upside down as this is a very un-natural position, one that can cause fish to refuse to strike out of suspicion.
*Traditionally flymphs are tied with natural body materials that will undulate in the currents. These body materials include hare?s mask, peacock, muskrat, mole, squirrel, and other natural fur with guard hairs. Shaggy body materials like rabbit, hare, and squirrel hold water well, sink quickly and also capture small air bubbles when they penetrate the surface film. These air bubbles create shimmer and sheen and look particularly similar to caddis pupa which uses internal gases to propel them to the surface or egg-laying caddis that dive underwater to lay eggs and carry with them oxygen bubbles for respiration. The hackle collars of flymphs are chosen with color and movement in mind to match the emerging wings, antennae, and legs of the ascending nymph. Soft, webby feathers such as hen, partridge, grouse, starling, woodcock, or quail are choice. These feathers absorb water and each has it own unique action underwater.
*Some modern flymphs are even tied with bodies representing both nymphal and adult components. For instance, the Transition Flymph is tied with a natural pheasant tail abdomen and a rabbit fur thorax of the shade of the emerging body of the adult mayfly. Furthermore, a Z-Lon shuck can be added giving the appearance of the nymph shedding its exoskeleton on its way to the surface"
"
Donald,
Is this a “nymph” or a “flymph”. http://www.flyanglersonline.com/bb/showthread.php?46099-A-Traditional-March-Brown-Nymph&p=451520#post451520
Really surprised that stoneflies are included in the above definition. Stoneflies generally crawl out of the water as nymphs before molting. Thus would not be an “emerger”. Very little evidence of stoneflies which metamorph like caddis or mayflies…
It is what both Leisenring and Skues would call a nymph. The word Flymph was coined by Pete Hidy.
Most of Hidy’s flymphs used up-eyed hooks, apart from that they were not much different from
Leisenring and Skues nymphs. One point, both of them preferred down-eyed hooks.
The naming as flymph or nymph is not very important. I did it because I thought some people
were making a big deal out of up-eyed flymphs and down eyed nymphs.
I don’t really care what term people use.
I usually call them all nymphs, for that is what they are.
And, soft hackles were called “spiders”. As we learn more and more about insects, their behaviors, and methods of more accurately imitating them, we also develop more descriptive names.
At one time, all subsurface imitations were “wet flies”…
It sure is hard to keep them dry while underwater.
Actually the word spider meant a way of winding a hackle around the front of the fly, it could be a cock, hen or any gamebird hackle.
A softhackle is a hen or gamebird hackle, some spiders are softhackle, if wound with a cock hackle they are not.
The West Country Spiders are wound with cock, and can be used wet or dry.
In the south of England the spider style dressing was often called ‘buzz’.
When was “soft hackle” first coined? Soft hackle means the fibers are “soft”. A stiff hackled fly would not be a “soft hackle” fly. Sylvester Nemes was sort of the “King of Soft Hackles” and largely responsible for their re-emergence on the fly fishing streams in America. None of his flies, to my knowledge, had cock hackle…
Love the fly Donald, but usually like all your ties! Nice job!
Skip
A spider dressed with Cock Hackle is not a Soft-hackle.
I have read of soft-hackle in 19th century books, I can’t give you the books at the moment.
I have read all of Sylvester Nemes Books, they are excellent.
The Spider and Soft-hackle are not equivalent terms.
Here in the UK, the use of Spiders and soft-hackles did not die out.
They have been dressed and used continuously since before Izaac Walton.
Because Halford and his Southern friends got very po-faced about wet flies means not much
in the general run of things in the rest of the UK. Thankfully for the southern anglers Skues
was around to disagree with the Dry Fly Purists. In Scotland and the North of England they were
not regarded as highly as they regarded themselves.
There are quite a few problems in terminological differences between the UK and North America.
Wet Fly does not mean exactly the same thing. In the UK, until comparatively recently, it meant any
fly not a dry fly.
Thanks for that. However, the post I included above (From a site in the UK) says the spider is the same as the soft hackle. Further, it lists the common types of “hackle” and does not list cock hackle.
I have read all of Syl’s books as well. I have two different braces of his flies also. Need I say “no cock hackle” in them?
A bit of history from the Northern UK gentleman quoted above regarding the soft hackle/spiders:
|North Country Spiders, or “Soft Hackled” trout flies really do epitomise the simplicity of fly fishing.
|
The origin of spider fly patterns is buried in the mists of time but some recipes can be traced back as far as the early 1800’s.
Some of the first descriptions of these little creations were found in an 1807 document written by Yorkshire farmer John Swarbrick.
|
|It was only during the late nineteenth century that the spider pattern really became recognised in the publishing of the classic book “Yorkshire Trout Flies” byT. E. Pritt in 1885 and re-published a year later under the title “North Country Flies”.
|
There were certainly many other supporters of the spider pattern writing at the time, but it was Thomas Evan Pritt’s book that really made an impact and was, and still is today considered by many as the standard reference work for North Country Spiders.
|
|
| Pritt’s belief in the spider pattern was based around some common - sense thinking in that it was virtually impossible ( in his time) to perfectly imitate an insect to copy nature, but an impressionistic one was feasible with the materials available to him. |
|---|
 |
His reasoning was that it was far more difficult to create a perfect imitation of an insect and to impart life afterwards, than to produce an impressionistic resemblance of an imperfectly developed insect, struggling in the current. |
|---|
|From 1886 onwards the spider patterns’ recognition spread until 1916 saw the publication of “Brook and River Trouting’ by [b]H. H. Edmonds[/b] and [b]N.N.Lees[/b].
|
This tome caused the spider patterns popularity to soar higher than ever.
Both Pritt’s, and Edmonds and Lee’s books are considered to be THE bibles on the tying and fishing of North Country Spiders and are well worth reading.
I’ve just scratched the surface of the history of these wonderful little creations – dig deeper and the names of W.C Stewart, W.H. Aldam and a real unsung hero – the West Country wet fly gentleman – H. C.Cutcliffe.
|
|So, with literally tens of thousands of patterns around today, why fish with what is just a hook with a little bit of silk thread and a few hackles from a game bird…?
|
The humble North Country Spider patterns perfectly imitate easy prey for trout and grayling. They have stood the true test of time AND will do so for many years to come!
|
[b]I would like to know your source of this information.
I noticed that there was a mention of Cutcliffe, he was a west country angler in the mid 19th century,
who tied the earliest recorded west country spiders using cock hackles.
You seem to be determined to equate spider with soft-hackle, as I have already said, this is not
necessarily true, to misquote George Gershwin.
None of the info you quoted clashes with my statements about spiders and soft-hackles.
[/b]
If you want some info on West Country Spiders try http://donaldnicolson.webplus.net/page109.html
This is divided into Cutcliffe’s Flies
http://donaldnicolson.webplus.net/page109.html
And more modern
http://donaldnicolson.webplus.net/page110.html
As you can see, I have done quite a bit of research into Spiders, Soft-hackles and other
regional variations of wet-flies.
I recall older fellows calling wingless dry flies “spiders” when I was young.
Donald, are you saying that “Buzz” refers to a collared hackle? I always thought “buzz” refered to palmering the hackle up the body, like with an Invicta? or Blue Zulu?
- Jeff
The problem comes back to words and how they are used.
I have seen the word used on dressings of flies like a Red Palmer,
referring to hackles wound down the body, and sometimes to flies
like Spiders with bushy dressings at the head, generally this seems
to have had a geographical and dialect component, the word does not
seem to have been used much in the north, but was used in the south.
Sometimes when reading a 19th century book, an awareness of the dialect
and social differences is necessary. They can appear quite subtle to someone
who has not grown up in the UK. There can be quite a change in word usage
in what seems like only a short distance.
When I grew up in Edinburgh, there was a neighbourhood called the Dean Village
on the Water of Leith, only ten minutes walk from the centre of the city, where the
locals had their own variant of Scottish dialect. Even today a Fife accent is discernable,
which is only about 15 or 20 miles away across the Forth Bridge. This is still common
throughout the UK. Our dialects, which are much stronger than a lot of people from
outwith the UK realise. Things are changing with modern mobility and the influence of
TV and the Media, but not that much.