Happy to report that I reached my self-imposed target of 1,000 flies this week, a full two months ahead of my plan. I guess it wasn’t too much of a stretch really, given that I don’t tie very complex patterns and had a lot of time on my hands due to the horrible wet weather we endured for much of the autumn and early winter. Since I started keeping a tally in the last week of September I’ve averaged about 75 flies per week, a handy enough quantity, but not excessive. The thumbnail at the top of this post is of a few of the dry flies I made, there are many, many more in other boxes!
The fly boxes are filling up nicely with flies I will use. This is important because for years I have been guilty of hauling around boxes filled with patterns I rarely tie on the end of my line. These would have been made when I was tying for other anglers and just tied a few extras for myself. there were lots of old flies too, ones which I used in Scotland but did not transfer well to Ireland, or trial patterns which did not live up to expectations. This winter I went through the boxes and culled anything which I didn’t think I would use, then filled the gaps with my favourite flies. The downside is I now have a box of unwanted flies which have been ousted and now need to be disposed of. I’ll probably strip them down and reuse the hooks.
Making a thousand flies did not cost me a penny. All the hooks and materials were already in my fly tying cabinet, hoarded over many years and now finally being put to use. I will need to spend some money though to replace the high usage items. My stock of certain hooks is now running critically low; I am down to a couple of dozen B175 size 10’s and maybe only 50 of the same hook in size 12. B170 hooks for lough dry flies are also in short supply so I can see an order will have to be placed early in the New Year. The never ending hunt for good quality bronze mallard will also resume. These feathers are the basis of so many Irish patterns that I am forever running out of them. Apart from those few items I am still in good shape.
Some of you may be thinking that I took the easy way out by tying a good few buzzers. I find that, despite being easy to tie, they take just as long to make as a bumble or dabbler. All those wraps of tying silk take time and then there is the varnishing of the whole thing too. Plus, they are so boring to make! I need to steel myself for a session making buzzers and tell myself I will be back on real flies soon.
While I am on about buzzers, here is a very simple pattern which I used many years ago, but I had forgotten about until now. All you need is a Kamasan B110 heavy grub hook, 6/0 tying silk, fine wire for the rib and a gold or silver bead. Slip the bead on to the hook and start the tying silk behind it. Now form a tapered body with wraps of the tying silk, making sure you go well round the bend. Rib the body and remove the waste before whip finishing tight behind the bead. The whole ‘fly’ can then be either varnished or coated in UV resin and hardened off. I made a few of these and will try them next season for brownies. Not sure if they will work as well as they used to for me back in Scotland where they were excellent for rainbows. Colours are the usual black/claret/brown/olive sort of shades. The weight of the bead makes them a good choice for the tail of a cast of buzzers.
So, what to do now? I could back off and be satisfied with my work to date, but with more bad weather on the way in January I feel like tying more flies since I can’t get out in the garden (or fishing). Dries never go wrong, what with them getting drowned and damaged in use, so I may well concentrate on dry mays and CDC patterns for the next few weeks. My stock of Wulff’s has been replenished, mainly your bog standard yellows and greens but there is a smattering of some other local dressing too. My CDC dry mays are not so healthy, so they are on the ‘to do’ list now. Here is one of my favourite ties:
Hook: B170 size 10 or 12
Tying silk: olive, 8/0
Tails: moose mane hair or badger hair
Rib: Globrite no.4 floss
Body: light olive fur
Wings: a pair of large CDC tied over the back of the fly. These can be grey or dyed yellow
Hackle: tied full in front of the wings, a grizzle cock hackle dyed yellow
This design, but with the colours varied in olives and greens, is a staple of mine when the duns are hatching.
There will be a short hiatus in the fly tying as I have decided to rearrange the fishing room. Yes, I am lucky enough to have a small room dedicated just to my ‘crap’ a Helen puts it. I frequently descends into chaos when I am trying to do too many things at the same time and right now it looks like a bomb has gone off in a feather pillow factory. I am taking to opportunity to change it all around so that I have more natural light for fly tying. This is possible after all the work we had done in the house, specifically removing the old radiator under the window and installing a new, one on the opposite wall as well as adding an additional double socket in the room. A bit of tidying up and shunting various shelving units around will make a huge difference.
I also have to do a fairly big dying session, something which I didn’t do last winter. My box of raw materials for dying is pretty full what with feathers, fur, whole wings, capes and various herls. I have even created a list of what colours I need and the order to dye them, basically light to dark. With all that organised I have no excuses and just need to get on with it. To be honest, I have been putting this job off because I will have to do my dying in the shed from now on (new kitchen is strictly off limits apparently), and the thought of working in the cold, draughty outhouse is less than appealing. Weighing against that is the pressing need for a couple of items which I have either run out of or am running dangerously low on. As a general observation, I find that as I get older I it becomes much easier to put things off, and I wonder if this is some sort of age related procrastination? We are promised cold but dry weather this week so I might stir myself and get down to the mouse infested shed for a few hours.
With my target met already, what do I do for the first two months of 2026? I think I’ll press on with more flies, putting together a box of spares of my favourite patterns. I also have some ideas for variations of old flies which I will try out next season, so there is enough there to keep me busy at the vice. I am planning a short visit to Aberdeen early in the year to catch up with family (sadly no fishing though). Aside from that, I will be building up my brownie points at home and plotting some future fishing trips. My injured arm put paid to so many of my plans for the last season and I want to pack in as much as I can in ’26. I am also thinking about making changes to this blog. I often go fishing but don’t write about it here as I feel it would become very repetitive. There is only so much I can stretch out of ‘went out on lough Conn, caught some small trout on wets, came home again’. Any suggestions will be given serious consideration.
Claretbumbler 