Rutland Water Fly Fishers Fly Tying Evening

Thursday 16th January 2014.
A mild January night lit by a full moon, and the promise of new and exciting fly tyings for the new season encouraged a record turn out for this popular social occasion.
4 enthusiastic RWFF members were invited to demonstrate their specialities and to share some secrets to around 45 members and their guests and to swap 'fishy tales' along the way.
The fly tying evening is always popular to see what's new and to get ideas for flies to tie for the new season.
'Clever' Trevor Ashby is a well know and gifted fly tyer, he worked at the fishing lodge years ago and is a regular on Rutland and more often these days on Eyebrook. He's quite a celebrity in the fly tying world, famous for appearing on many fly fishing TV programmes. His speciality is using new and unusual materials and methods to make fly tying simple and effective. He usually produces something unique, novel and innovative at these events and this evening was no exception.
On this occasion, Trevor focused on his unique dry flies, including his 'Eyebrook special', a parachute style tying, using the same hackle stalk as the parachute 'post' and the wing with a hot orange thorax, "deadly" says Trevor. Parachute dry flies feature a hackle, tied horizontally around a 'post' on top of the body creating a floating fly with a very realistic insect wing and leg profile from underwater and a submerged body. The post can also be used as a sight indicator, ideal on rivers so that you can see the fly easier in turbulent flows. Trevor tied these on a 'klinkhammer' curved hook. Trevor's parachute fly works well on Eyebrook with a hot orange dubbed thorax, lying just sub-surface, suspended by the horizontal hackle.
Klinkhammers and other parachute flies with hi viz posts are used widely on Southern chalk streams with a tiny gold head nymph tied 'New Zealand Style' underneath, if your dry fly disappears, the trout has either taken it, or the nymph underneath, lift the rod, either way, 'Klink and Dink' it's known as, and it gives a bit of 'legitimacy' to the 'bung' method of bite indication on those rivers where, traditionally and upstream dry fly or unweighted nymph is usually the order of the day.
Trevor recounted many funny stories during the evening including the one about an 'Old Etonian' who requested some parachute flies to resemble a pattern which he gave to Trevor to copy. That fly got lost but Trevor tied him his own versions plus an extra one to make up for the lost sample. " They're Perfect!" said the old Etonian, "I can't even tell which is the original!"
Martin Blakeston, inventor of the famous 'Blakeston Buzzer' a 'must have' pattern for all Rutland fishers showed us some very delicate Diawl Bachs and Crunchers, essential for nymph feeders throughout the season. Martin also brought a huge amount of feathers; hackles and all manner of materials which he kindly displayed for a charity sale. Lucky members went away with bargains galore.

Paul Wild brought along a wonderful selection of his own superbly tied saltwater flies which he uses on his bonefish adventures to Andros, Bahamas and Cuba.
Gotchas; Crazy Charlies; Deceivers; Shrimps, Clousers and lifelike Deerhair Crab patterns were shown and demonstrated, tied on stainless steel saltwater hooks, many designed to swim upside down along the sand with the addition of chrome dumbbell eyes. Paul also showed his excellent version of the Minkie made with 'colour-edged' rabbit fur and tied his well know invention and 'catch-all' fly, the Black Pheasant Tail Nymph, tied on the now discontinued Traditional Wet Fly #8 hook, this is a perfect general 'buggy' imitation and can catch fish throughout all season, but works particularly well in April and May along the Arms of Rutland Water.
Brian Bonner made a selection of successful skinny buzzers and intricate Diawl Bachs and showed us his ingenious tying of the Irish 'Duck Fly'. Using black chenille, melted to a point with heat for a realistic body, he created a very lifelike hatching chironomid (buzzer). I'm sure these would work really well when the Rutland trout are taking emergers.

Cameron Neil moved from his native Scotland to Rutland purely for the fishing, which speaks volumes about the quality of what we have on our doorstep! He believes Rutland, Grafham and Eyebrook beat any Stillwater fly fishing available anywhere else in the UK, and we agree with him. This will be Cameron's first season as a RWFF member and we welcome him as an enthusiastic and gifted fly fisher and a particularly inventive fly tyer.

Many standard fly patterns which we now take for granted were initiated by Cameron and his repertoire keeps growing. For this evening he demonstrated a number of his specialities. Some, brand new on the scene specially premiered to RWFF members (so make sure you join this season). His Mylar fry pattern has been deadly for the past 2 seasons and the introduction of a 'double hook' gives it an irresistible wobble in the surface. I can vouch for it's success, giving me a few exciting floating fry sessions last season around the North Arm weedbeds. Make sure that you add a gold holographic eye, it makes all the difference.
Cameron demonstrated the correct way to tie the two-tone blob and a new foam 'helmet' blob pattern, which gives buoyancy without the danger of spinning to which the booby blob can be prone. The Rutland Rat isn't fished as much as it should these days but it was this palmered body minkie which caught Cameron a 10lb 6oz brown trout last April from the dam wall. The 'Rat' works well in Black/Yellow and Olive/White colour combinations. A jungle cock or substitute eye adds to the effectiveness.
Finally, some flies to give heart murmurs to the purists and traditionalists amongst us... the 'Humungus Tube'... one for the rudder guys with silver/gold/black/green/pink/holographic sparkle (just let your imagination run wild) and a grizzle or fritz palmered body on an extra long tube, with or without the 'Friendly' foam half body, but as I can testify, this fishes outstandingly off the front of the boat also, deadly, but not for the faint hearted!  This is Cameron's beautifully conditioned 10lb 6oz Brown Trout caught in April 2013 on the Rutland Rat, the fish was weighed on digital scales but was sportingly returned to the water before being witnessed by AW fishery staff so sadly didn't count as one of the biggies caught last season. I wonder how big it will be this season?


The next RWFF social evening will be on Thursday 30th January with a talk by Anne Woodcock, from FishPal the hugely successful online fishing booking company specialising in Salmon fishing throughout the UK and an enthusiastic campaigner for getting ladies into fishing.

Rob Waddington