Chris McCully

Funnelduns

Monday, 28 December 2009 at 20:36

The Funneldun was designed by Neil Patterson in the 1980s and featured largely in that wonderful book Chalkstream Chronicle (1995). The pattern was the result of hugely careful thought and observation and was a radical departure from 'normal' dry flies. The pattern's constructed by (i) dubbing on a tiny thorax, (ii) winding the hackle (which can and should be a poorish quality, long-fibred cock), (ii) 'funnelling' the hackle fibres over the eye, (iv) constructing a body from tying silk, the body extending into the hook bend for two or three turns, (v) tying in some strands of feather for a tail so that the tail fibres have a downward-slanting list, (vi) winding the silk back up the body and whip-finishing the fly behind the thorax. Finally, a small 'V' of hackle fibres is cut on the topside of the hackle. This last action will ensure that the fly lands and fishes hook-point upwards. It's a brilliant design.

The fly is robust, light enough to land softly and to float all day and, as noted above, it fishes point upwards. It's a wonderful representation of a just-hatched dun. I tie two variants, and both have caught scores if not hundreds of trout and grayling - not just on the chalk streams but on the rain-fed rivers. One is tied with dark olive silk, a smidge of brown-olive thorax and a slatey-blue dun cock hackle. That's a cracking pattern (size 14) when the fish are taking the Large Dark Olive. A lighter-coloured pattern (size 16), tied with yellow-olive silk, a brown/grey/pink thorax, white tail and a grey-blue dun cock hackle is a good fly to use over fish rising to Medium Olives and Pale Wateries. This last artificial can also be good on grayling in October given a hatch of lighter-coloured olives.

I've experimented for years trying to find a good Funneldun representation of the Iron Blue (e.g. purple silk, mole's fur thorax, inky-slate cock hackle) and although my trials have caught fish I invariably go back to the old winged representation of the natural fly. I don't know why the Funneldun trials have failed. Perhaps, too, I return too quickly to the old winged dressing merely out of sentiment. I love to see those inky starling wings cocked in the wind-driven currents of the later spring.

LBJ

Thursday, 24 December 2009 at 09:54

No, not Lyndon B. Johnson, but what a dear old angling friend of mine used to call 'Little Black Jobs'.  How often, during the course of a fly-fishing year, do trout and grayling seem to be preoccupied with a variety of LBJs, from tiny hatching midge pupae to reed smuts.  The pattern pictured has close affinities with the IOBO Humpy and is tied on a size 24 hook, although the dressing - ultra-fine silk and a single CDC feather - is so simple that you can probably tie even smaller sizes.

It's probably best to tie up at least half-a-dozen of these patterns: they get soggy and begin to sink after catching one or two fish.  And they will catch fish.

God rest ye merry, gentlemen.

The Almost-Invisibles

Monday, 21 December 2009 at 20:41

One thing I enjoy very much about fly-tying is that one evening you can be tying 10-inch-long pike streamers - a process which is more akin to some kind of hobby-modelling than tying 'flies' - while on the next you can be tying up size 24 dry flies for grayling. The flies pictured are dressed on size 24 Orvis Big Eye irons, a well-tempered hook which has formidable holding properties. They're F-Flies and variant Humpies, the last examples tied with a single CDC feather. Also pictured, and there merely for scale, is the blunt end of a dress-making pin.

I can't myself work with Pearsall's Gossamer on hooks this small. The thread's just too thick. I use Danville Spiderweb, which has less diameter than a human hair. In construction terms, it also helps to have ultra-fine and ultra-sharp scissors to hand; while tying, you also need a good soft tension on the bobbin-holder, keen eyesight and a limitless supply of patience.

Fly-tying weather

Sunday, 20 December 2009 at 12:50

For the past three days we've had significant quantities of snow.... Blizzards.... It has been a time of shovels and salt. Once the snow-work has been completed there's not much to do of a Sunday except put another log on the fire and do some fly-tying.

Sturdy's Fancy and its variants

Sunday, 20 December 2009 at 12:45

Sturdy's Fancy (variant), size 20. These are some of my favourite patterns to use on grayling which are rising to invisible scraps of nothing during the later autumn and winter. I tie them down to size 24. The usual sizes (14-18) are normally tied as in the original, with a hackle wound at the head. On the smaller (size 20-24) patterns I actually find it easier to wind a palmered genetic hackle up through the peacock herl which forms the body. I fancy that makes a slightly more durable fly, and the genetic fibres have excellent floating capabilities. I also tie in a tiny strand of flash in with the red Globrite which forms the tag.

Circumnavigating my trousers

Wednesday, 9 December 2009 at 16:58

If you're one of those unfortunate souls who wear their fishing and/or shooting clothes to pose nicely indoors with the Glass That Cheers, read no further. You shall not have trousers. No, madam: you shall have breeks, and they shall have monogrammed garters, tassels and other flappy bits. Alternatively, if you do slum it in trousers, they shall be something nifty and bespoke, possibly with braces. Yet here I shall not speak of the bespoke, nor shall I address braces, tassels and monograms. Again, no: I invoke only the resolutely practical. Indeed, I speak of that rarest of things, the empirically-verifiable fishing trouser.

Fishing trousers confuse the hell out of me. I have a couple of pairs which are admirable: lightweight, quick-drying, easy- (or no-) iron, austere khaki, reinforced in the knee and seat. They're great. Yet they have so many pockets that I don't understand them. I keep vowing that one fishing lunchtime I shall sit down semi-naked and, while trilling there strangely under the gale, explore my own trousers - their miracles of velcro, their secret pockets, retractors and zips. Thus far in a mis-spent life I've had no time for the metaphysics of trousers, and all such vows have remained mercifully unfulfilled.

I've also had a look - only a look, mind - at trousers which are made out of a sort of oilskin. What worries me there is that their impregnation might wear out, off and away over time. They also come with unfinished hems. Now, yes: I suppose I could myopically fiddle about with a needle or learn to bond with a sewing-machine. I could also ask someone already needle-qualified and bonded to have a go for me, though I suspect I'd get a thick ear. There's a further problem, too, in that these oilskin trousers come in Foreign Sizes, and I don't understand Foreign Sizes. It's one of the unreported facts about living and working Abroad that a chap still thinks of his trousers, and all their measurements, as of old, in his and indeed in their native language, and I'm buggered if I'm going to talk inside leg measurements in a second or third tongue while someone called Nils, Jeroen or Pierre hangs about, however helpfully, with a centimetre tape measure. The fitting room is a daunting enough prospect as it is without having to do conversion tables and maths, wondering about hems and impregnations, and doing all the converting and wondering with no more preparation than a half-forgotten O level taken four decades ago.

Complicated chap, John Trouser. Takes a bit of thought. Or did.

On the other hand, one pair of trousers I wear a great deal in the colder months is a pair of EWS joggers from Hardy. They're made of fleece. They have strong elastic somewhere southerly and an elasticated waistband. The stitching is tough and neat. They also have indestructible YKK zips on the pockets, so if you put your keys in there they won't fall out. You can dress underneath them - pull on a pair of thermal leggings, for instance - and if you do so then you can wear the lot (leggings plus joggers) under breathable waders and still stay toasty warm even in the coldest weather. The joggers are also easily washable at 30C, hang to dry in an hour or less, and never need ironing - a fact which will cause your entire household staff to cheer as they lay out your laundry. I wear them - the joggers, not the staff - for fishing, for doing stuff in thorns, mud and thickets with the dog, for gardening.... You name it. In a year's use, these joggers haven't gone pully or baggy; the fleece hasn't pilled; the zips and the elastic still work. I can tuck the elasticated bottoms under a pair of ski-socks and then step, with a jolly and seasonable quip on my lips, into a pair of wellies. Best of all, I understand them, these joggers. (They're available from John Norris, Fawcett's of Lancaster and other good suppliers in the UK, and you could try Exclusive Fishing [www.exclusivefishing.nl] in the Netherlands.) You wouldn't want to wear them to a sherry reception or a night at the opera, but in an outdoor context they probably represent the most practical 25 quid you can spend: you'll never have to waste time trilling and puzzling; you'll be warm; and you'll never again have to worry about your impregnations.

The fly-tying bench

Sunday, 6 December 2009 at 19:55

There's been little pike fishing over the past month. Work and weather have intervened. Today, Sunday, was the first time for many weeks that I've had a day which was at least relatively free. I looked out of the window: the rain was siling down. Time, then, to sit at the fly-tying bench and start thinking about next season.

One trout and sea-trout pattern I use a great deal in Ireland is the Bibio. I tie it in several sizes (10-14, on Kamaszan B175 hooks) and in two versions, one with an orange midriff, the other with a red one. Both versions are immensely versatile. I fish them over freshwater trout moving to duck-fly (buzzers, particularly the black buzzer of spring) and to heather flies (during the later summer). I also fish them over sea-trout in different parts of the Irish west.

Anticipating a trip to Melvin in the spring, I also tied up a couple of sparsely-dressed Sooty Olives: another good early-season buzzer pattern.