Early season choices.

"You can't always get what you want

But if you try sometime you find

You get what you need."

Rolling Stones, July 1969

So it is with my fishing. Living in South Northants, I am in easy striking distance of some of the cream of our still water fly fishing, Eyebrook, Grafham and Elinor to name but three personal favourites. However, come the beginning of the trout season 'proper', where I want to be is on a Border trout stream, and in particular, somewhere within the Monnow catchment.

http://www.wyeuskfoundation.org/fishing/booking_office/wild_monnow.php

At a distance of around 130 miles, two and half hours driving, trips to this little snapshot of heaven are not to be taken lightly - they're planned, thinking about the trip is to be savoured, the anticipation is acute.

At the time of writing this it's very early, the wild streams won't have 'got going' so there's ample time to consider what patterns to employ when the heart of the streams warms and fly life becomes more prolific. Here's a selection of dry flies that will feature in my fly boxes.

1. Baby Sun Fly

Dressing

Hook: TMC103BL sizes 13, 15, 17

Thread: Brown or black

Tail: Hackle fibres, coch-y-bonddu or black

Rib: Tying silk

Body: Rabbit face fur taken from the triangle formed by the eyes and nose

Hackle: Coch-y-bonddu or Rhode Island with a small black hackle wound through

A 'traditional' pattern, the invention of the Reverend Edward Powell, Vicar of Munslow, Shropshire. It's a 'busy' fly as many Border stream patterns are, with plenty of hackle and body. With the benefits of genetic hackles, synthetic materials and efficient floatants, modern patterns usually lack the bulk of flies that were popular on the tumbling streams  in the early to mid 20th Century. Treated before use with Watershed, this remains a very successful pattern in the early season, it rides high in disturbed water and provides a meaningful mouthful for opportunistic fish.

2. Kite's Imperial

Dressing

Hook: TMC103bl sizes 13, 15 & 17

Thread: 8/0 Uni thread, purple

Tail: Honey Dun hackle fibres

Body: Heron herl (doubled to form a thorax)

Rib: Fine gold wire

Hackle: Honey Dun

A simple, conventional hackled dry fly, the invention of Oliver Kite. However, don't let its simplicity cloud opinion of its worth as a catcher of fish in the early season.

3. Bastard Adams 

Dressing

Hook: TMC103bl, sizes 15 & 17

Thread: Black Veevus 16/0

Tail: Dark blue dun hackle fibres

Body: Baetis Olive Zelon dubbing

Wing: Lemon duck substitute

Hackle: Dark blue dun

This is a pattern I discovered in Roger Smith's excellent book, 'Flyfishing the Welsh Borderlands', (Pub' Coch-y-Bonndu Books, 2011). Smith credits the pattern to Usk gillie Stuart Jarvis. I've 'amended' the original dressing in a couple of areas. The original called for a body of slate grey rabbit or muskrat underfur and a wing consisting of a bunch of brown partridge back feathers. I wanted a fly that was somewhat darker than the original.

4. Large Brook Dun

Dressing

Hook: TMC103bl, size 11

Thread: UTC Ultra 70D, Brown Olive

Tail: Coq de Leon

Body: Olive turkey biot

Wing: Roe Deer

Hackle: Champagne Badger

The Large Brook Dun is an early season emerger that doesn't hatch in open water, it crawls out onto the streamside stones and as such it doesn't give the trout a great opportunity to intercept it when compared to other flies.

It is a large fly however and on windy days, when the duns are blown back onto the water, it's worthwhile having a suitable pattern. This pattern is my own invention.

5. Jingler

The Jingler is a new fly for me, a fly that has received a lot recent fishing press attention and some very positive comment . . . so I'd better give it a try! 

Dressing

Hook: Tiemco 103bl size 15

Thread: Veevus 16/0, Brown

Tail: Coq-de-leon

Body: Stripped peacock

Hackle: First, Whiting Furnace, second Grey Partridge

First Blog entry . . . a fly I'm really pleased with.

I have some fly patterns that I really wouldn't want to be without, go to patterns that have proved  their worth over years, ones that engender considerable confidence that they will 'work'. So, over the winter period I strive to replenish the gaps left in my fly boxes where these patterns have been, but I have a problem. . . my personality is such that I struggle with the sheer discipline required to tie six of the same pattern, in four different sizes . . . my mind begins to wander and I start to imagine what else might work.

So it was back in November when I was hopelessly trying to fill a box with Flashback Pheasant Tail and Hare's Ear nymphs in various combinations of sizes and styles. . .  I spotted some yellow dyed pheasant lying on a yellow dyed partridge skin. It looked a combination with possibilities, I started to look at the mild Autumn weather outside the window and of the planned float tubing trips to Elinor Trout Fishery. . . the nymph box was put to one side.

 . . . and here's the end result . . .

The dressing . . . 

Hook: Hayabusa 373, Size 10

Thread:UTC Ultra 70D, Yellow Olive

Tail: Yellow dyed partridge 

Body: Yellow dyed pheasant tail

Rib: UTC Ultra wire, SM, Fl. Yellow

Thorax: Hareline Ice Dub, Olive

Hackle: Yellow dyed partridge

It is a dressing that has proven to be hugely successful for me, three float tube trips to Elinor in November and December producing 51 fish, almost all to this pattern. Subsequently, I've tied it as a bead head on a size 12 TMC200R which has been equally successful. Here's a somewhat 'chewed' example . . .

I use a lot of my own patterns, mostly variations of well known and established dressings and I don't give them 'names'. This one however, has been so successful I've nicknamed it the 'Magnet'! Give it a go.