I was born and brought up in the Isle of Man - a small island about half way between England and Ireland. It covers 227 square miles and has a population of about 60,000. I was only interested in sea fishing and when I moved away to go to University and then to teach in England, I did no fishing at all. Much later I was taken fly-fishing by a friend and fell in love with the sport immediately. Shortly after that I saw a demonstration of fly tying by the Fly Dressers Guild and went along to the classes they ran at their weekly meetings. All that was about 15years ago and I’m still tying purely for pleasure. In 1987 (at age 50) I was offered early retirement from teaching (I taught Chemistry to 11 -18 yr olds) as my local Education Dept decided they had too many teachers. Now I supply (substitute) teach when I feel like it, and that keeps me out of mischief and funds holidays - usually in USA.
I generally fish small stillwaters and I tie flies to use there, most are buzzers and many of these are referred to as skinny buzzers. There are two main reasons 1) they are very successful and 2) they are easy to tie!
I tend to stick to the simple patterns for the reasons given above. I have recently been experimenting with soft hackle flies, in particular what we know as North Country Spider patterns. These too have been successful and I suspect they will work just as well in Pa. My favourite of these is called the Hare’s Lug and Plover. This consists of yellow waxed thread lightly dusted with hare’s fur so that the merest trace adheres to the thread. The thread is wound round the shank and a hackle of a well marked Golden Plover feather added. This is a very effective fly . |
