Classic Wet Flies
Bergman and Beyond
By Bob Petti
This article has been brewing for quite some time. One of the first fly tying books I ever got was Mike Dawe's "The Flytiers Manual". I think I got it for Christmas one year from my Mom. I was a little disappointed at first because it was UK based and seemed "different". The more I read it, however, the more I learned to appreciate that difference. Not only that, I kept going back to the chapter on wet flies. They were fascinating - and quite beautiful. They were unlike anything that was "in vogue" at the time in US based magazines and books. My interest in wet flies has been on a slow simmer ever since.
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by S. SchweitzerThis past Fall and Winter, the simmer came to a full boil. It started with a visit to the International Fly Tying Symposium, where I watched Don Bastian tie for awhile and then sat in on his slide show. Granted, a gifted and experienced tyer like Don always makes fly tying seem incredibly easy, but I couldn't shake the "I can do that" feeling that was coming over me. I'd wrapped my share of thread, paid enough dues. It was time to scratch an itch. The first thing I did was dig out my 1965 edition of Bergman's "Trout", which was handed down to me from my father.
When I was browsing through the plates by Dr. Burke and picking out flies to tie, I tried to choose that that had a variety of wing styles. Some married, some duck flank, some solid "slate" as they call the natural duck and goose wing quills, some mottled, and some solid colors. I looked for a variety of colors schemes, some bright attractors as well as some flies sporting more subdued natural tones. I wanted a few with palmered hackles as well as a few with mixed hackles. Some classics are sprinkled in, but for the most part, many of these flies are not well known.
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Ed: This article has been updated with flies tied during the Christmas holiday season of 2005. The new set starts with the "Beauty". |
I must say, tying the sets of flies was great fun. I tied three of each, which filled a single row in an old Perrine #60 fly box. Due to the size of the hook, I had to skip rows, so I could fit 5 rows of three flies on each side of the box. Since I had two boxes, I had a total of 20 patterns to tie. I listed the patterns on a sheet of paper and sat down and tied. By New Year's, I was done.
Since Wet Flies seem to be coming back in fashion somewhat, I thought I'd share them with GFF readers.
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Finding
mallard flank to make a nice slip wing is difficult. You need to
use those "side" feathers that are essentially one sided, with the
good side having solid web all the way to the tips of the barbs.
I sorted through a lot of flank to find a few feathers to use on
these flies.
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This
was supposed to be a Lord Baltimore, until I realized I forgot the
jungle cock eye. As luck would have it, there was also a fly named
the Black and Orange that match this recipe perfectly. Lucky me.
Since my dyed black goose was more of a dark blue, I used natural
crow quill for the wing. Looks nice.
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I
never noticed this fly until I saw it on the cover of Don Bastian's
DVD. It caught my eye and I thought I'd try my hand at a few. It's
a real handsome pattern. I'm a sucker for flies with palmered hackles.
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The
wool body of the Brandreth provides a different texture compared
to the more widely used floss body.
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This
is the first of Bergman's wet flies that I tied. I plan on fishing
these on Long Island's Connetquot River, where some friends have
found yellow to be a good color for the local brown trout.
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When
choose flies to tie from the book, I could not pass up a fly known
as "Catskill", especially since it contains one of my favorite materials
- lemon woodduck flank. Palmered hackle? Man - nice fly.
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Dr.
Burke was the man who painted all the plates in Bergman's book "Trout".
This fly is just a wonderful blend of materials and colors, which
also happen to work quite well as a streamer.
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A
nice combination of colors in this fly. If tied using the traditional
mottled turkey in the wing, use goose shoulder instead of goose
quill for the yellow stripe, as it will marry easier.
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This
fly calls for mottled turkey in the original recipe, but I happened
upon a matched pair of speckled hen wings that looked terrific.
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The
Fontinalis Fin is another imitation of a clipped brook trout fin.
This version is also often tied with an orange wool body.
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The
wing on this fly is just a bit too long. The fly is commonly tied
as a trout bucktail using gray squirrel tail for the wing, and is
also used as a salmon fly tied on an upwing iron.
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I
was surprised to find quite a few of the wet flies in Bergman's
book sport some sort of floss or thread ribbing. I used Danville
3/0 to rib this fella, which is tied on a size 8 Mustad 3399 hook.
Any heavier thread or floss would dominate the body too much.
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Another
well known classic fly. The Leadwing Coachman is often used during
Isonychia Season, since the nymphs of those mayflies are known to
migrate to shore so they can emerge on streamside rocks.
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One
of the most famous of all the "Bergman" wet flies. The Parmachene
Belle is named after Parmachene Lake in Maine, USA. The first time
I ever saw a real one was when a friend in Nova Scotia sent me some
in a swap, telling me how he used them when fishing for sea run
brookies. How cool is that?
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I'd
like to know a little bit more about the history of this fly, as
the Pebble Beach I know is known more for birdies and bogeys rather
than trout and wet flies. Still - a pretty fly just the same.
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One
of my favorites of the lot. This pattern also makes for a beautiful
dry fly. There are not many patterns that incorporate pink into
their recipe without being gawdy.
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One
of the most famous flies of all time, whether the upwing dry fly,
or the quill winged wet fly as shown here. This combination of materials
has been used in a million different ways to catch all sorts of
fish. A true timeless classic.
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| I can hear you now. "Silver Doctor? You kidding me? This does not match the recipe in Bergman's book." You're right. It doesn't. The recipe for this fly came from Mike Dawe's "Flytier's Companion", which is UK based. I loved the combination of colors and the mallard flank sides. Forgive me, Ray. | ||||
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Here
again I made use of speckled hen wing quills in place of the traditional
mottled turkey. Don't they look nice? This is a real pretty fly.
Not flashy, but certainly not dull by any means.
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A
real pretty fly. Nice combination of colors and materials. The wing
can be made with either matching left/right slips of barred woodduck,
or taking one wider slip and folding it lengthwise (the British
method). By the way - this is a real fish catcher.
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Knowing
that brook trout were quite territorial, old timers would often
clip the fin off a caught fish and use it for bait. Fly fishers
imitated this behavior by creating several "trout fin" type flies,
this being one of the popular variations.
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Who
turned the color off? Talk about a black-and-white fly, with a little
silver and gray to mix things up a bit. Drab - but fishy, isn't
it? I was looking for patterns that had Guinea wings, and this is
one of the first I found.
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A
not-quite-as-well-known fly from the UK, where "blae"
refers to various shades of gray (like dun, slate, etc.). Quite
a few of the patterns from the UK use GP tippet tails. I try to
keep mine sparse and make sure both bands are showing, but keeping
the separation between bands significant.
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Everyone
knows about this fly. The theory is that the silver is the butcher's
blade, the red is the blood from the meat, and the irridescent blue
is his apron. Whatever. It's a great fly. The original called for
Ibis for the tail, but I use just a few whisps of hackle.
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Who
could not like this fly? What a great combination of colors. Gold
and claret/magenta with a mottled wing. A real beauty. It's easy
to see why this has caught so many fishermen's attention over the
years. This one was tied with chicken wing quills like the flies
above. Amazing, eh?
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Probably
the single most famous fly of all. I am a bit embarrassed to admit
I've embellished the traditional dressing a bit by adding the bronze
mallard tail and using holographic gold tinsel for a tag and a rib.
I can't help it. That holo gold is a fish magnet.
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The
UK's version of an Adams. Everyone ties and fishes the Greenwell's
Glory in an almost infinite number of varieties. This particular
one was intended to be close to the original dressing, including
the dark waxed primrose body and the narrower-than-usual Starling
slip wing.
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One
from Helen Shaw's wonderful book on wet flies, "Flies for Fish
and Fishermen - The Wet Flies". I first saw this fly in a swap
I did back in 1994 and it's caught my eye ever since. Hen again.
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Another
one from Helen's book. It makes a good match with the Hardy's Favorite.
I used to tie this one with a wing tied "Hughes" style
with a bunch of dark dun hen saddle fibers. The quill wing looks
much nicer.
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Obviously,
I am struggling with my bronze mallard wings. This fly is fishable,
but it will not win any beauty contests. I almost chose not to include
it here, but it's such a good fly. It's very popular in the UK and
has spawned countless variations on the "mallard and claret"
theme.
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One
I had never heard of prior to getting a copy of Helen's book. One
day I was in the mood for some herl bodied wet flies, and this one
caught my eye. Again - hen here instead of turkey (I know - I'm
being redundant - but I don't want to be called out on the mat by
the internet fly tying police.)
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Can
you believe this fly? The red wool body leaps out at you when you're
holding the actual fly. It looks like a Christmas ornament in my
fly box. I like it.
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Another
from Helen's book. I wanted a dark fly with a bit of flash. This
will do the trick.
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Another
very well known fly - although probably more so for sea trout than
for trout fishing. I have done very well with this fly, however,
fishing it during the height of the season with all sorts of little
fry are about.
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I
wish I had done something different with the first turn of hackle,
as the overall effect of the palmer makes the fly look butt heavy.
Still - this will be a fish catcher. Gold tinsel, brown rib - what's
not to like? This will catch fish - and in fact has caught fish
for far longer than I have been fishing.
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