A great video from Davie. There is something special in the elegant simplicity of this style of fly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XClf5oDzFwk
Queue Highlander :)
They look too heavily tied to me, especially the wings, which should be slim and upright.
Did wonder about, but still a think of beauty. ;)
Like all my flees .... Davie says it's a "variant" !!
I learned to tie from scratch at the Bert Sharp club. Every pattern was lifted, I think, from Sharp's books. Clyde style and strictly adhered to.
The sessions always finished up just before the season opened and then we would have a night with some beers and a blether.
On one of those nights I remember Wullie Gentles, then President of UCAPA, passing round a large polished wooden box given to him by Bert's wife after he died. Inside there was a twig pressed into foam with Bert's flies pushed into it. They were slim, sparse and exquisite.
The Hen Blackie was my favourite wet. Tied in #16 I fished a pair of them often through May and June, deadly at the right time. We had a few turns of hackle in front and behind the wing, the one behind helped get the wing more upright.
Wullie taught me my first fly, a black spider. After he died the club was renamed Sharp & Gentles.
Suffice to say my tying has deteriorated since those days and I tend to sit on the bank watching most of the time now, but I still keep a few Hen Blackies in the box.
Great story Mac. :)
Davie is without a doubt a fine fly tier & the beauty of him is that he can cover many disciplines.
His Clyde Flees though whilst are very neatly tied & quite fishable are not strictly correct as too the marque. Like Sandy said generaly in a wee wet the wings should be a tad slimmer & upright what I can a "jaunty angle" I would have used lighter hook bit pedantic on my part I
reckon, still good stuff never the less.
Tight Lines
As Fred said, Davie's flees are things of beauty!