Tying with Nils

At the vice again this morning with the record player getting a spin to keep my spirits up. Maybe a bit of Nils Lofgren to start with. I should explain that I spent yesterday sorting out the mind-numbing jumble of old vinyl and CDs that littered the spare room and got them into some sort of order. It turned into a bit of a marathon what with over 500 albums to put into the right sleeves/boxes and then store them neatly. I unearthed a Bonnie Rait CD which had been missing for years and a Rory Gallagher album I didn’t even know I had! Anyway, I pop Nils on the turntable and sit down to ties some old patterns for the salmon fly box.

So what will I tie today? Let’s take a look at the Quack, a salmon fly for my local water, Lough Beltra. Can’t say I have caught anything on this pattern but it looks like it should produce a springer in a big south-westerly wind. It is fun to tie regardless so here is how to make this colourful pattern.

For a hook I use a single salmon iron in sizes 4 down to 10. Tying silk is black. Start the silk at the eye and run it down to the bend where a tip of oval silver tinsel and a couple of turns of golden yellow floss silk are tied in. The tail is a Golden Pheasant topping feather with a slip of red (or Indian Crow if you have some) on top. Now you make a butt from ostrich herl or some coarse wool. I tend to leave out the butt and the fish don’t seem to mind. The body is black floss ribbed with silver tinsel and I add a body hackle of black cock palmered the full length of the floss. The throat hackle is a nice bright orange cock hackle. I use one long in fibre to provide movement. the wings on this type of fly are static so I rely on the hackles to give some life.

Make an under wing of tippet strands or on bigger hooks tie in a pair of tippet feathers back-to-back. Married slips of yellow, red and blue swan come next and veiling them is bronze mallard. Jungle cock cheeks and a topping over the wing are added. Now form a neat head and whip finish before colouring the head with black varnish. I think the original had a red head but again, the salmon don’t seem to give two hoots about details like that.

It is nice to tie these old patterns and then give them a swim in the lough. Plenty of very talented fly tyers make beautiful married wing salmon flies but these are usually for show purposes and not for actually fishing with. I use the old flies so they don’t just fade away into show cases but get a wetting occasionally. I don’t think they are any better or any worse at attracting salmon that minimalist modern hairwings.

Enough guitar gymnastics from Mr.Lofgren, it’s time to for go a bit of good old prog rock with some Jethro Tull. ‘Thick as a brick’ will do nicely I think….