This wee fly intrigues me. Mulranny is a scenic wee village on the northern shore of Clew Bay, a few miles from where we live. There is a golf course, a nice hotel that does a roaring trade during the summer and the usual scatter of touristy shops. The views across the bay to the distant Reek are utterly gorgeous and the miles of sandy beaches are attract visitors and locals alike. The thing is, there is no lough fishing near the village, so why is there an idiosyncratic wet fly bearing the same name?
Regardless of the nomicultural conundrum, this is a lovely fly to tie. A couple of points make it stand out. One is the design which uses a herl cover over the body, and the other is the use of Amherst pheasant tippet feathers. These look like washed out Golden Pheasant tippets but they have a different texture to them. Once very hard to procure, these days you can pick up a small packet of them easily from good suppliers. The suspicion is the fly is some sort of beetle imitation but it has a fairly generic appearance to me so it could be taken for any number of different food items by the trout.
Hook size is usually a 12 wet fly hook. I have tied it on 10’s and 14’s too, but the 12 is going to cover most situations. Use 8/0 black tying silk. The body is dubbed black seals fur and this is ribbed with fine oval silver tinsel. Over the back of the hook is some peacock sword fibres, about 5 is enough for a size 12. You tie the herls in at the end of the body, dub and wind the seals fur and rib as normal with the oval tinsel. Now draw the peacock herls over towards the eye and tie down tightly, before removing the waste ends.
Take a tippet feather and cut about a dozen fibres off. These are tied in on top of the fly to form a sort of wing. Remove the waste ends and catch in a hen hackle which has been dyed black. Give the hackle three turns, tie in and trim off the waste end. Now form a neat head, cut off your tying silk and varnish the head.
I tend to think of this pattern as one for the hill loughs instead of the likes of Corrib or Mask. Regardless, it is a nice easy fly to tie on cold winter’s night when all we can do is dream of the fishing to come next spring.
I am finally putting up items for sale on the ‘Stuff you can buy’ page on this website. There are a few flies there now and I will be adding more in the near future.
Claretbumbler 