Any Ideas ?

[deergravy]

purist fly snob :lol:

i'd like to try some 'fishing side by side comparison' experiments next season, actually try to find which flies are more prolific if any, how could the test be made fair enough to draw conclusions?

Well, we could just fish them side by side.
To make it fair, you can pull the old-school lures, I'll persevere with the usual tactics

[Malcolm]

These big wet flies do seem to pull the bigger fish. I've fished Cam loch many times mostly dry fly or top of the water tactics at least. The one time I did an experiment with a medium sinker and big wets/lures  I got much fewer fish but the average size was about 4 times bigger. Boring though.

[Black-Don]

The top picture there is the one from the book - I remember the peacock herl head and furnace hackle wings.
Actually, it looks pretty good  
Don't think it bears any relation to the Jersey Herd, apart from the word 'Jersey'I think it's another American pattern, from the days before mass communication and the crossover between US and UK approaches.

I don't know how you can say that. Obviously the Jersey Minnow was tied in 1938 long before the invention of the Jersey Herd circa late 50's / early 60's but it was tied one year after Don Gapen invented the Muddler Minnow which was another US pattern.

I'm not saying any of these flies were copied or influenced by other patterns but there is no denying obvious similarities.

[Black-Don]

one has a big feather on top

A more sparsely tied muddler



The similarities to the Jersey Minnow and ultimately the Jersey Herd are unmistakeable  :roll:

[Traditionalist]

quite fancy trying tying up some of these hackle wing streamers,was going to try a black ghost or silver darter are they useful for wild broonies or gave they been superseeded?

Some work quite well. It is usually best if you can "match" any local bait fish, but sometimes even outlandish stuff works.  Some "desperation" patterns have produced for me on occasion.

I have caught very many browns on this fly, the "Sweeney Todd"  this was originally invented by Richard Walker.



hook: long shank, # 6-10
thread: black
tail: nothing
body: black floss, fluorescent Magenta wool yarn to the front end
ribbing: fine oval silver tinsel
throat hackle: crimson
wing: black squirrel  but black hackles will also work. ( I do much better using marabou or fox tail MC).

For some other ideas have a look here;

http://globalflyfisher.com/streamers/guest/stewart_leeman/

http://globalflyfisher.com/streamers/index.php

These flatwings can be very good indeed when various bait fish are about. They swim very differently to other types of streamer.

http://globalflyfisher.com/streamers/raske/flatwing/flatwing.htm

TL
MC

[Traditionalist]

thanks mike . i found it interesting that you pointed out that you do better with marabou versions, one thing that struck me about these older faithfuls is that,  they don't look like they have the movement of marabou or arctic fox type streamers and that perhaps they have sentimental attraction  or just a fly tiers eye candy rather than some of the more current  effective preferances.

Indeed, when I first started making flies many years ago now I always went to considerable pains to try and get the "right" material as specified in various patterns.  One day I happened to run out of black squirrel tail, ( Squirrel is a "hard" hair which can be difficult to use anyway), and so I tried a bunch of black marabou with a black hen hackle on either side.  Although the squirrel variation caught quite well this "soft" version was very much better.  I then left off the hen hackles and it still caught well. The fish do tend to rip the marabou up a bit and once the "wing" gets too short it loses much of its seductive wiggling action.  While looking for a more robust substitute with a similar action I tried the fox tail.  Both the marabou and the fox tail versions catch a very great deal better for me than the original squirrel tail versions.

TL
MC

[Malcolm]

The fly that Mike posted was responsible for what maybe the best catch of wild brownies that I have ever heard of. It was a catch of 4 wild brownies from Lanlish in 24 hours which I think was around 28lbs. The picture used to be on the wall of the Cape Wrath hotel.

[Black-Don]

The book Arrived today and it was indeed John Veniard's Fly Dressers' Guide. All of the standards were there as was the Parmacheene Belle, a Matuka ( which I thought was a modern fly ), a Muddler Minnow  and the Chief Needebah. No sign of the Jersey Herd or Jersey Minnow though.

I'm amazed at the contents of this book as what we talk about now was obviously a topic for discussion way back in 1952 when the book was first published.

What is relevant now seems to have been relevant then and although the patterns don't use marabou or other " modern " materials I learned very much of what I know about fly tying today from this book.

Tying techniques, step by steps, recipes and colour photaes et al. How did we ever manage without the internet ?