The Global FlyFisher
Simply the Best Place to go for Online Fly Fishing and Fly Tying
https://globalflyfisher.com/forum-topic/flies-for-big-browns
May 14. 2023
(0 replies) |
Apr 4. 2023
(0 replies) |
Mar 1. 2023
(0 replies) |
Feb 9. 2023
(0 replies) |
Jan 1. 2023
I have just moved to Istanbul and am... |
Jul 12. 2022
Any update here. Looking to fish... |
Mar 11. 2022
How did it Fish? One of the best... |
Nov 29. 2021
Nemo,
Good to hear that the setup works... |
Published May 23. 2007 - 16 years ago
Updated or edited Aug 8. 2015
Flies for big browns
Forums:
Something a bit different this time.
I have added a new section to the West Country Wets.
It is of H. C. Cutcliffe's flies (1863). They have the use of cock hackles in common with the later Devon & West Country flies,
but they are much larger, size 6 and 7 hooks, and brighter.
I have tied some up as close as I could get to his original recipes, although I used size 8 sproat wet fly hooks, they were the largest I had.
They were intended for fast water in bright conditions, I also dressed some experimental versions, trying to keep with his ideas.
The Sea-run Cutthroat and Steelhead anglers have shown some interest.
Submitted by:
DonaldN
Log in or register to pre-fill name on comments, add videos, user pictures and more.
Read more about why you should register.
Read more about why you should register.
Contact
Contact usContribute articles
No guest posts
The Global FlyFisher Newsletter
About the Global FlyFisher
Discussion forum
Policies
Copyright © 1994-2024Copyright © The Global FlyFisher
Copyright © contributing authors
No reprint without permission
- paper, electronic or otherwise
Cookie policy
Copyright policy
Review policy
More policies
Love those north country
Love those north country spiders, they even fish great in slow motion danish streams. Give me some north country spiders, and I will never starve ;).
In my opinion the north country spiders never got the popularity world wide they deserved.
Chers
Morten.
Morten, as you have no doubt
Morten, as you have no doubt noticed, I am rather keen on them myself.
One small point, The West Country Wets are, strictly speaking, South Country Wets.
They are not very well known outside the West Country, that is the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset etc. There is rather a limited literature about them.
Although quite a few of the 20th c. patterns are used as dry flies in many parts of the UK.
The Half Stone and its variations is probably the best known. In the mid 20th c. upright winged dry flies became less popular and 'spider' cock hackles were more used in the UK and so quite a few of the West Country Wets were used as dries.
For anyone else who is interested, here is a picture of a Half Stone, which I tied on a modern size 14 dry fly hook.
[img:6626a5cb7d]http://www.dtnicolson.dial.pipex.com/_wp_generated/wpba5759dc_1b.jpg[/im...
p.s I liked your sea trout fly, it has affinities with W. H. Lawries 'All-fur Flies', a book I can highly recommend.
Hi,
Hi,
I had and old Danish book once, by a guy called Poul Friss. It had a lot of spider patterns as Dry flies in it, all tied with a hackle twice as long as the shank and no tail?
The picture of "your" half stone is with a short hackle, is that particular to that pattern, or was it the style of all spider dries??
Chers
Hi Morten,
Hi Morten,
That was a poor example, the short hackle was what I had at the time.
Here are some better -
[img:d0fdb3af31]http://www.dtnicolson.dial.pipex.com/_wp_generated/wpb9fbf8ca_1b.jpg[/im...
[img:d0fdb3af31]http://www.dtnicolson.dial.pipex.com/_wp_generated/wpaaa09ff6_1b.jpg[/im...
[img:d0fdb3af31]http://www.dtnicolson.dial.pipex.com/_wp_generated/wpde3ab27e_1b.jpg[/im...
As you can see they have quite long hackles, especially the Devonshire Doctor.
They were, and still are, used on the streams of Exmoor and Dartmoor as wet and dry flies.
If you have a look on my site at the earlier 19thc Cutcliffe wet flies, which they derived from,
you will see that large cock hackles were popular then.
There are no illustrations of Cutcliffes' flies, so I had to base my dressing of them on his text.
Here is my site address
http://www.dtnicolson.dial.pipex.com/index.html
Have a look under - Devon & West Country Flies - 19th Century - 20th Century.