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A selective trout which repeatedly
refuses our flies is often one of the most fascinating adversaries and is
worthy of being challenged by us. Such a fish keeps us busy, putting into
practice a whole series of device that are the fruit of our experience, in
order to entice it to take. The most common devices include offering the trout
a selection of flies which normally differ in colour, size or the feathers that
contribute to their construction. We concentrate practically all of our
attention to detailed shades of colour, all of which involve the same kind of
assembly and so we neglect what really compromise the imitation’s resemblance with the insect:
the hook.
Just observing an artificial on the water surface from the position of the fish, we can easily see how often some parts of the hook are visible. In particular what is clear, amidst our feathery creation, is the strange bent outgrowth at the abdomen’s extremity and the hook point which covers most of the body's posterior: it is a kind of danger signal from the trout, bringing back memories of shock and surprise when it last met with such an “insect”, and therefore our fly is sending all the signals for a refusal.
The solution to such a problem has triggered the lifelike artificial imitations of many fly dressers: the result has been obsessive research for tying techniques able to show off the imitative qualities of their flies to the maximum. Such research is aimed at hiding the hook to make it less visible. This brought about the birth of several “impressionistic flies”, or at least, more complex ones.
These minute objects are sometimes more suitable for adorning walls in our homes, or framed in an exhibition, rather that being effectively useful for the solution of difficult situations on the river banks. By this I do mean that any fly structured in an elaborate way is destined solely to have an unique place inside a fly box merely to be shown to friends for the purpose of arousing their astonishment or curiosity. More than once I have in fact realised that a smart imitation can be decisively appetising for trout. Their suspiciousness won over, they would come to attack such unusual silhouette, which concealed all of those elements which could be danger signals for the fish.
I also realised that some artificial patterns required a modest effort and short dressing time, despite their extremely intricate and complex appearance which make them seem to take a long time to be tied. Amongst these I was surprised by the case of the upside-down tying technique.
The resultant flies had great advantage of placing the hook on the water surface upside down with the point towards the sky, the abdomen – to the eyes of the fish – hid all the bent part. In such a way the fly could hide that part the frequently alarmed the fish, causing them not to rise. The trout were persuaded to take the fly, even if they had already shown a reluctance in accepting a very likely imitation made on traditional lines.
Just observing an artificial on the water surface from the position of the fish, we can easily see how often some parts of the hook are visible. In particular what is clear, amidst our feathery creation, is the strange bent outgrowth at the abdomen’s extremity and the hook point which covers most of the body's posterior: it is a kind of danger signal from the trout, bringing back memories of shock and surprise when it last met with such an “insect”, and therefore our fly is sending all the signals for a refusal.
The solution to such a problem has triggered the lifelike artificial imitations of many fly dressers: the result has been obsessive research for tying techniques able to show off the imitative qualities of their flies to the maximum. Such research is aimed at hiding the hook to make it less visible. This brought about the birth of several “impressionistic flies”, or at least, more complex ones.
These minute objects are sometimes more suitable for adorning walls in our homes, or framed in an exhibition, rather that being effectively useful for the solution of difficult situations on the river banks. By this I do mean that any fly structured in an elaborate way is destined solely to have an unique place inside a fly box merely to be shown to friends for the purpose of arousing their astonishment or curiosity. More than once I have in fact realised that a smart imitation can be decisively appetising for trout. Their suspiciousness won over, they would come to attack such unusual silhouette, which concealed all of those elements which could be danger signals for the fish.
I also realised that some artificial patterns required a modest effort and short dressing time, despite their extremely intricate and complex appearance which make them seem to take a long time to be tied. Amongst these I was surprised by the case of the upside-down tying technique.
The resultant flies had great advantage of placing the hook on the water surface upside down with the point towards the sky, the abdomen – to the eyes of the fish – hid all the bent part. In such a way the fly could hide that part the frequently alarmed the fish, causing them not to rise. The trout were persuaded to take the fly, even if they had already shown a reluctance in accepting a very likely imitation made on traditional lines.
IL DRESSING
We
start to tie the Spinner Reverse by inserting the hook onto the vice
jaw, so that a good part of the bend stays free. We then wind the red thread on
to the shank in order to secure four or five Coq the Leon hackle fibres just
after the point where the bend start. Such a high number of fibres for the tail
may seem too much if we aim at exact imitation, but if we want the tail part of
our fly to have good floating capabilities we must not make this too sparse
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We secure a piece of flat, medium width pearlescent tinsel over the hook bend
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After having creating a slightly conical underbody with the red thread, we wind the tinsel two thirds of the way up the hook stem to make the Spinner reverse abdomen
Now
clamp a small bulldog clip onto the tips of two light brown cul de canard
feathers (the feathers must be arranged one on the top of the other). With a
pair of very sharp scissors trim away the feather fibres caught by the bulldog
clip close to the point where they are attached to their stalks. We invert the
hook in the vice so it is upside down and we tie in a small hackle of a natural
red cock neck in front of the fly abdomen. Then form a dubbing loop with the
red thread, in which we insert the blades of the bulldog clip holding the cul
de canard fibres
Make a
few turns of the dubbing spinner to increase the tension on the thread, then we
slowly open up the bulldog clip whilst removing it from the red thread loop. The
thread will spin itself around the freed fibres to form a CDC rope
Now we
wind the CDC rope tightly along the central part of the front third of the hook
stem, pulling the soft fibres upwards with the left-hand fingers after every
turn so that, at the end of this manoeuvre, a feathery tuft of CDC pointing
upwards from the shank has been created
Having
tied off the loop and trimmed the excess, we wax the red thread and we dub it
with a small quantity of light brown arctic fox fur, in order to create a thin
and compact dubbing for winding an imitation thorax, crossing and winding
around the wing structure as we do so
We
take the hackle point with the hackle pliers and palmer it through the thorax
to build the legs which assist the balance and floatation of the pattern
We
realise the head of our fly with some turns of the red thread and then we whip
finish it
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The Spinner Reverse is now ready for the next fishing trip, very useful for catching a selective trout that refuses our traditional flies
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MATERIALI PER IL DRESSING
HOOK: for caddis imitation size 14 to 18
THREAD: red
TAILS. Coq de Leon
ABDOMEN: pearlescent tinsel
WING: light brown cul de canard
THORAX: dubbing of light brown arctic fox fur
HACKLE: natural red
THREAD: red
TAILS. Coq de Leon
ABDOMEN: pearlescent tinsel
WING: light brown cul de canard
THORAX: dubbing of light brown arctic fox fur
HACKLE: natural red
