There was a small tin box in my fly tying cabinet which caught my eye today. I don’t remember where it came from or why it was lodged under some squirrel tails, it just seemed to appear there. I must have used it ages ago and forgotten about it but today I opening it up out of curiosity. I figured it would probably contain some rusty swivels at best, but no – some flies were nestling in the bottom of the tin. Here are some of them:
A Benbecla Ke-He. Nice fly for lochs when there is a dirty, squally day. Just like the usual tying except it sports a white hackle.
Another Ke-He, this time one with a white muddler head. This looks a wee bit like that great old campaigner the White headed Loch Ordie, a great killer in the gloamimg on highland lochs.
A useful sea trout fly. Half a dozen of these were in the box, possibly tied up for a sea trout trip many moons ago.
A very pretty fly but I can’t in all honesty say I have slain bags of trout with it. If this works then so should a Teal and Silver or even a Butcher.
Some lads swear by Purple coloured flies for salmon, I tend to swear at them instead. I have landed a few late season salmon on purple shrimps but I much prefer a touch of red in a pattern for the autumn. Anyway, 2 Purple Ally’s Shrimps on size 8 doubles were in the tin.
A scatter of Watson’s Bumbles in all sizes from 12 up to 8 were in the tin, a great find for me as I use this fly a lot for Salmon and Sea Trout. I prefer it to the standard dressing as it has more action in the water.
I haven’t tied this fly for many years now so this was an old fly. The Burton is a pattern for Loch Lomond but there is no reason it shouldn’t work here in Ireland for salmon. I will give it a swim to try out my theory.
Not sure about the name for this lure, it is called Teds ‘something’ (maybe Fancy or Killer or Favourite….). Looks like a reasonable stickleback imitation to me.
One of these bushy lads was in the tin, a wet Grasshopper pattern. Almost certainly tied up for Mask/Carra this one will be popped straight into my loch fly box. Good at this time of the year and one which the trout take confidently during August and September.
There were some other Dabblers and Peter’s in there too, but nothing to get overly excited about. I checked the hook points and sharpened a couple of them before relocating the good flies in my normal fly box. I’ll let you know if they bring me any success!
Claretbumbler 