What have you tied today?

[lnelson20]

A sound suggestion from Alex there,I had a few problems early doors with these,the fly landing upside down.

One of my most succesfull ant's was one that was actually tied with foam that obsorbed water and sank a few inches,this was fished dead drift with just an occasional twitch,the take indicated by nothing more than a subsurface swirl,seemed to have a better percentage of hook ups with this one than the floating ants.

Chris.

[Clan Ford]

After last nights efforts I tied another variation on the brown wire nymphs this morning - these are more maroon wire nymphs - for all you jambo's out there (or is that just me) :roll:

Norm

[Clan Chief]

Nice wee nymphs. You wouldn't have been too happy when My team The Diamonds knocked you lot oot the League Cup a month or two ago. I will need to tie a fly to celebrate our great victory. Watch this space

[Crawhin]

Nice nymphs there Norm - are they French by any chance?  :lol:

Like a dog with a bone I'm still on the search for a Blea and Black for modern times. This time - inspred by Bandy's smart hoppers -  have tried some of the varients with a spiky, grey fallow deer hair wing. Got so say I like the look - will be drowing some of these next season for sure.  :?

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Also saw some of these in a magazine recently and liked the look - nice and simple and slim; peacock quill body, jc splits at the cheek and cock pheasant tail/hackle tips.   

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Cheers,

Ian

[Crawhin]

Cheers Gav. Gettin lots of inspiration here - and that's half the battle.

Ian

[Malcolm]

That Blae and Black really is almost the dogs testimonials. I'm going to tie it up and shave off the hackle from the underside. Great fly 

[Clan Chief]

Agree with the above posts regarding the B&B variant. Lovely fly looks a real killer.

Here are my latest flies from last night..........

[Harpo]

for all you jambo's out there (or is that just me) :roll:

Norm

Nah me too Norm, they did well yesterday against the filth...sorry 'Gers

Oh aye and today I've only managed to tie my laces.....just

[Crawhin]

just to chuck in a cat amonst the pigeons   , why do you think that the "blae and black " variant would fish any better than the standard tying?

Breac,
May well not fish any better the the original but it's still fun tinkering and trying to "improve" patterns. I do like the old Blea and Black - it's a good early season/black buzzer pattern. I just felt that it lacks something the way it's usually tied in its shop bought form - with a heavy, full and immobile wing and hackle. Neither am I a big fan of the modern southern reservior style supreglue buzzer imitations - no life or movement to them for me. I also still think that the fly tyers art is to enhance and exaggerate the trigger points in flees not just to carbon copy what the real thing looks like (impressive though that skill is).

To jazz up and 'modernise' the B&B was the brief. So the curved grub hook, wee seals fur thorax, sparse mobile starling hackle and spiky grey deer hair wing all came in. Looks OK to me while still being a B&B - and as the lads have pointed out, the deer wing lends itself to fishing it as a ginked-wing
emerger/dry too. Have yet to get out and scare the fishes with it yet so have no idea how/if it'll work but all good fun messing about to create it all the same.  

Cheers,

Ian

[Clan Chief]

All this talk of the B&B variants reminded me of a fly I tied a number of years ago which I seldom use but one of my mates liked to use on the Tweed. I tied them on grubber and ordinary straight shank hooks size 12 and 14's.
I know it isn't  really a B&B but it was in my eyes a variation.

Tied this tonight on a 10

Body=black rabbit fur
Rib = silver wire
Wing = Grey antron wool
Hackle = Black hen.