The Banshee

Here’s one for ye all now. A sea trout fly I tied up around the time Adam was a boy (OK, slight exaggeration). What I wanted was a pattern featuring green and black but there was nothing out there that matched my expectations so, I tied this fly. The colours looked a bit, well, ‘demonic’ to my world-worn eyes so I christened it the Banshee after the Irish spirit that heralds a death. She (Banshees are female of course. The literal translation from Irish is ‘fairy woman’ ) wears a green dress so that was where I drew my inspiration.

I like a size 10 hook usually but have been know to stray a size bigger or smaller on occasion. Tying silk is black and the rib is oval silver tinsel. Black seals fur, roughly dubbed, forms a body and this is veiled by two cock hackles palmered over it, one black and the other dyed green. Four legs fashioned from knotted cock pheasant tail herls which have been dyed black are tied in over the back of the fly and at the head there are many turns of a dyed black hen hackle which is quite long in fibre. The tail is subject to some change as I tie two different versions. My most used one has a tail made from squirrel tail hair dyed green, the other one has a tuft of fl. green yarn as a tail. I often add a couple of knotted pheasant tail herl legs to give even more movement to the fly.

As I have done hardly any sea trout fishing for many seasons this once deadly pattern has been ignored and left in a quiet corner of my fly box, abandoned and unloved. This is a travesty as I used to have great faith in it’s powers to pull in white trout on those dark and windswept days we get here late in the season. I have a strong suspicion this fly would do some damage on Scottish and Welsh waters if tied a bit smaller than I use here in Ireland.