My journey as a fly tyer has run both long and wide and has encompassed a deep dive into a variety of traditional and contemporary styles and patterns. My normal tying is focused on the subtle intricacies of designing and tying imitative trout flies for those tough, selective fish and tying orders for my customers. There are periods in the year that I often take an abrupt departure from my normal fly tying. Lately my attention has been on the traditional Yorkshire Spiders of Pritt, Edmonds, Lee, Stewart and others. While I am fascinated by their simplicity; their sleek lines and the way they play in the water, I’m even more intrigued by the creativity and thought behind them. I sometimes imagine what it must have like to be a fly tyer in the 1800’s and having a collection of tying materials limited to those you could collect from local hunters, trappers and farmyards, and using these materials to craft imitations of the insects found in your local stream. Imagine tying them without the benefit of a vise, a bobbin or other modern tools. When you look at these flies thru that lens you can begin to truly appreciate them. This week’s pic is TE Pritt’s No. 11 pattern, the March Brown with some of the materials specified in its recipe. In a few weeks I will be offering a collection of these flies I’ve tied in a handmade leather fly wallet. Till then …… www.ramsayflies.com
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