You may have spotted these news on Facebook and Instagram already. If not – today is the official release of a new dry fly hook in the FW-series: the 504/505 Short Shank Dry Fly Hook.
Continue reading “Ahrex FW 504/504 Short Shank Dry Fly Hook”
Category: Grayling
Foamulator
If the fish are playing tricky, the best approach is sometimes to do something totally different (and often something that all the other flyfishers don’t do). And sometimes a big, high floating dry is the right way forward.
The partridge
The ultimate game bird for fly tying? Maybe not, but the different feathers from a partridge are amongst the most versatile for nymphs, flymphs, wet flies, spiders and soft hackles. Soft pulsating hackles with an attractive marking that offers plenty of life and movement to the fly.
Terrestrials – or land insects
The trout season is coming to end end, at least if your’re a topwater/dry fly fisherman and many rivers and lakes close down for the winter. But it’s still September and although there are very few mayflies hatching now, there’s still some caddis, but also an abundance of terrestrials – or land insects. They are at their prime now.
Caddis or sedge
Two words for the same insect – an insect that is quite important to the trout- and grayling fisherman. In fact probably even more important than the mayflies since there are so many more species of caddis than there are mayflies. Like the mayflies they are important both as nymphs, emergers and adults and imitations are plentyful.
Beginnings
YouTube, Instagram and the internet in general is a vast and frankly quite incredible source of information. It can help everyone move forward in a new hobby (like fly fishing) very quickly and new knowledge is shared and presented at lightning pace. I generally believe that is good and there’s no doubt that the sharing mentality is helped along greatly by outlets like YouTube (and of course, we believe that our own YouTube channel is a good source of information and inspiration).
Adams CDC Cripple
Our Swedish friend, Joel Skoghäll once again has provided us with some material for the blog that we’re very happy share. This time, a cripple-version of one of the most famous American dry flies, the classic Adams. The fly is a old one – from 1922, where Michigan fly tyer Leonard Halladay tied it on the request of his friend, Charles F. Adams. The classic Adams is a traditionally hackled dry fly with upright, hackle-tip wings. A parachute-version is a well known variation and here, Joel presents a crippled merger version.
I’ll give the word to Joel:
The Rackelhanen
Rackelhanen is an unusual fly, originated by the Swedish trout- and grayling legend, Kenneth Boström in 1967. Kenneth Boström is well known in Scandinavia and originator not only of this quite excellent fly, but also the Rackelhanen fly rod, which is/was a three-piece rod with a split cane bottom section and two carbon fiber tip sections.
Signatures
A signature is something personal, be it the name you sign under legal documents, an artistic style, an icon, a sign, a seal – something personalised. In fly fly tying it can be a material, a style, a certain technique or a special fly.
The trout don’t always rise…
Dry fly fishing is fascinating and I’m quite certain that all fly fishers agree. Watching a fish slowly and confidently sip down an imitation is, for me at least, the pinnacle of fly fishing. But alas, trout don’t always rise. In fact I suppose it’s correct to say that most of the time, they don’t. If you’re a die hard dry fly fisher, you wait (and perhaps cry a little) and you stay home during the cold months. I personally love dry fly fishing for trout and grayling, but I don’t stay home during the cold months, and I don’t (always) spend a day at the river, waiting for the 45 minutes at noon when the temperature rises just enough for a short burst off insect hatches.