Some of my favorite silver bodied flies
We fly tyers live in what is the golden age of artificial flies. Every conceivable material is readily available and at affordable prices. New materials proliferate every year and so new, innovative patterns are devised to use this plethora of plastics and threads. I now that I now use some materials I had never heard of only a short time ago. But for all that I still like to use some of the old reliables and silver tinsel is right up there at the top of the list.
Originally metal, flat tinsel now comes in various plastics, mylar being the most common one. Different widths are available to suit all hook sizes and the beauty of the new tinsels is they don’t tarnish like the old metal did. I’ve covered loads of silver bodied patterns on this blog already, Silver Daddies, Silver Drakes, Teal, blue and Silver – the list goes on. Here are a few of my other favourite flies which utilise silver tinsel.
- Silver Invicta Bumble. The standard dressing is perfect so there is no need to go changing anything. A fly for later in the season it is a capital fly for browns and sea trout. Want to try something different? Tie a blue deerhair head on and stand by for explosive takes!
- Silver Stoat. Either the original with a topping tail or any of the dozens of variants are good for salmon in low water. To me, size is important with this fly and I think the smaller the better.
- Silver March Brown. Perhaps not such a popular fly but I think it is vastly under-rated. I also tie a variant with the hackle and tails made from partridge hackles dyed olive. Fished fast across rising trout this has caught me many fish.
- Teal, Green and Silver. Just a slight difference from the ubiquitous Teal, Blue and Silver this one can be very good on a bright day and clear water.
- Corrie Fly. This one takes me back! One of the first books I ever owned on fly tying was Tom Stewarts ’50 popular flies’. There were a few volumes of these and I still own my originals. In volume four I found this pattern and over a lifetime of angling it has caught me a few trout. It worked on the Ythan for sea trout back in the day and I have had fish from Conn on it late in the year. Easy to tie, pop it on the tail and fish it on dull days.
- White Butcher. One of my own, this is a pin fry pattern. Usual red tail/silver body/black wing but I swap the black hackle for a white hen. Only drawback with it is the perch absolutely love it! I also make a similar fly but with a wing made from teal flank.
Claretbumbler 