The Solicitor!

Heres a pattern that was brought to my attention by Martyn White aka @ Flickingfeathers on his  excellent flytying youtube channel. Martin is a Scottish Flyfisher, Flytyer and Blogger living in Japan. Martin's flytying tutorials are a wealth of information and well worth checking out!
The flee is also mentioned in Barron's book! "A Fine Line" He got the pattern from another book called "A Fisher in the West" by Eddie Young! Which was published by the Stornoway Gazette which focuses on Hebridean fishing and flies! Happy to say I've tracked down a copy which has just arrived this very morning! Looking forward to reading it as I just love books on regional flyfishing and flies! 
Sorry! I digress. Heres the flee. The Solicitor!!

Meddling with Muddlers

This weekend I have been quite lazy as I had planned on doing a fair bit of walking to try and reduce the Covid Beef mountain I appear to be accumilating!

I did venture out once over the weekend for a cold and icey walk around the Lily Loch.

However most of the weekend has been spent sitting at the vice, tying mostly muddlers! 

I'd been tying a few Blue Zulu Muddlers which apparently, are great patterns to have in your armoury when fishing out on the Outer Hebrides! Where I hope to going in August Covid Permitting!

So after tying a row of these I had a look online for any unusual or obscure muddler style patterns to tie.

A pattern which caught my eye was the Voshimid Muddler which to my eye looks like a Teal Blue & Silver Muddler.

Apparently this is great taker of sea trout & salmon.

I'm sure there is a great video kicking about of Paul Young fishing on Voshimid. I cant remember if he was fishing that muddler though. I'll need to check it out and find out.

I'm never that happy with my muddlers as it's always  a bit hit or miss how they look after Ive taken the scissors to them for a trim.

However I'm fairly satisfied with these three on show.

Its probably down to me practicing  and tying so many this weekend.

I suppose lockdown has its advantages in having me stuck at my vice these last few days!

The Jingler!

I noticed on a social media page that some angling friends have been tying some lovely versions of the famous Jingler fly pattern recently. An excellent early season dry fly pattern of great repute for the likes of the River Clyde! 

I believe this famous old pattern originated in regions of the River Tweed over two centuries ago and is very popular on many other Scottish Lowland rivers too. 

I was rather impressed with my friends tying of them, so I thought I would throw my fishing bunnet into the ring, so to speak. Heres my take on a couple of Jinglers I tied this morning! Hope you like them and it gives you the notion to get to the vice and tie some up too! 

Bush Baby Muddler

Last night I got to experimenting with  a new modern material called Bush Baby from FNF which was brought to my attention just last week.

From what I was told it's used to form egg flies which are very popular at small commercial fisheries and the like. 

However I noticed that this material could have other uses such as forming  a muddler style head on Loch Style Wets.

I really like the look of this and will look into getting some more of this material in more natural colours such as black and shades of brown if those are available.

These look as if they could work well!

To my knowledge I've never seen any bush baby muddlers before! Im very pleased with how they look but the acid test will be how they perform in the water! Be interesting to see if they push through the water in the same way that deer hair does!

Alternatives!

Since the start of the new year I've been tying just as many variations of a few trout fly patterns as the Scottish Football Authorities  have of Covid 19 rules and regulations for their member clubs.
However there is nothing unscrupulous in my flytying. I am acutely aware and very reluctant  to name my patterns just incase someone deems them irregular fly dressings.

Pictured here are a few Alternative dressings of  patterns with my added twist. 

Here is a reimagined variant of the Kate McLaren incorporating  a green collar hackle which gives the pattern a whole new look!

Ive also tied a couple of alternative versions of the Sooty Olive!
It is difficult to say for certain what the original dressing for these well known Irish Lough flies is
as there is an abundance of variations to choose from! 

Also pictured is a generic winged loch style wet pattern which has a bit of a Dunkeld look about it in there somewhere, which was unintentional at the time.
I hope you like them!