This article was first published in our local Fishing club magazine for Anglers in Varde in the summer of 2007.

 

Old Scots in the river Varde

 

Each winter we offer our members Fly Tying lessons in our club. In the course of our last sessions of Fly Tying – our chairman asked me if I could possibly be interested in writing an article for our magazine. As we talked further on the subject, we came up with the idea to address the coming fly tying lessons to some of the flies that had already proven their worth on the river and I would try – if possible – to locate written material about the early Fly Fishing on the river Varde. This however proved to be more than difficult, as there are nothing put in writing about Fly Fishing earlier than the 1980.

 

Classic Spey and Dee Flies

In this chapter some stories began to emerge about local variants of some of the old classic Spey and Dee Flies. It was during the Squirrel tail faze, when all flies were equipped with squirrel wings of some sort.

 

One name comes to mind from back then and that was the Carron Fly. The name was always given as a variant and early on I decided to try to find out more about this Fly. It turned out to be a classic Spey Fly, its roots dating back to the town of Carron on the river Spey in Scotland.

 

This Fly – or rather this type of Fly is unique as it has existed as a style in 200 years but also because it’s a kind of Fly that doesn’t exists anywhere else in the world, where game fishing for The Atlantic Salmon takes place. Naturally you come across these flies – but the development of the fly as a class, happened on the Spey.

 

What characterizes the fly as a Spey Fly is first and foremost the low layered wings, that are almost always made from the Bronze Mallard. This kind of wing is presented as the back shield of the shrimp. Spey Flies are in nature imitations of shrimps – when talking about shrimps – you include moving legs – thus indicating loads of movements and liveliness.

 

At the beginning of Fly Fishing, Fly Tiers had to come up with a material that was easy to get and at the same time procure the amount of liveliness and movements in the water. They came up with the second thing that classifies a Fly as a Spey; the use of the side tail feathers from the roosters that all had in the small societies back then – and still today.

 

These feathers have that special ability that they have long fibres at the bottom and short ones at the top. When using them for Hackles and tying them at the bottom at the bend of the hook, you get a long fibred hackle that imitates the long legs and the antennae’s of the shrimp. You then have the short fibred hackle at the eye of the hook – indicating the shorter legs of the shrimp and thus you get the imitation of a shrimp swimming backwards.

 

 To make the Fly work properly in the water – you need to strip the hackle feather down one side – or cleave it. Failing to do so – will leave you with a overly compact Fly, that ultimately will be hard put to work in the water and thus fail to lure the fish into thinking this is live prey.

 

Next step that characterizes the Spey Fly is the body, which on all classic Spey flies are tied from Berlin wool.

Berlin wool is the wool from the Merino lams and it has a very fine texture. Originally it was used for embroidery – especially cross stitches. For embroidery they needed strong clear colours – unlike clothes that – at that time – usually were dyed with plants.

 

Berlin wool originates, as the name indicates, from the town of Berlin. The craftsmen came up with an idea, a novelty not seen before, to mass fabricate ready made embroidery kits. These contained paper patterns and the yarn needed for the embroidery. To get the colours the yarn was dyed with aniline colours – the first kind of artificial colours put to commercial use.

 

For Fly Tying the wool can be used as either spun or dubbed. The bodies are always long and slim and often ribbed with 2-3 different kind of materials – and one of the ribbings are usually tide in the opposite direction of the 2 others. Apart from creating a very different look, it serves the purpose of tying the hackle down and at the same time ad more strength to it. This is needed as it’s a well known fact that salmons do have Fly tearing teeth.

 

There’s still an ongoing discussion on which kind of dyed wool is the most proper to use. Personally I tend to use both, as both have their personal charm, strengths and weaknesses. Naturally dyed colours tend to be less noticeable in coloured waters – where the artificial dyed ones are more striking.

 

The last thing that characterizes Spey Flies is the hook. On both the Spey and the Dee Flies a type of very long shafted hooks are used. These are also known as “long shank Dee hooks”. Typically they range from 2-3 inches – but can be found up to 6 inches long. They are made from very thin wire and have no eye.

 

In the picture above you see a Carron Fly tied in hand. This particular Carron Fly is tied with a Heron hackle. Using Heron for hackle – you have to tie it reverse to the classic Spey hackle due to the Heron fibres being the longest at the tip.

 

Another Fly of almost the same type is The Akroyd – or rather The White Wing Akroyd. This Fly also originates from the river Dee in Scotland. The author of the Fly, Charles Akroyd used to tie it back in the latter part of 1800. It’s also known as Poor Mans Jock Scott.

 

On numerous occasions this Fly has proven its worth in the local rivers in the south western rivers of Jutland. Lately it hooked a salmon weighing more than 20 pounds, in the river Varde.

 

Tube Flies.

If you go for the more modern type of flies, the hair winged tube flies are quite popular.

 

For several years the tails of the artic fox have provided good materials for the smaller tube flies, if however you tie larger tube flies you need the fur from goat, bear or temple dog.

 

Thunder and Lightning has always been a good fly to fish the river Varde with. The above in the picture is a cone head, on which I have caught several Trout. A more contemporarily version has a body made from a small aluminium or brass tube. They come in all sizes and shapes – the one thing they have in common is to take the fly as close to the bottom as possible.

 

When simplicity is the key word and you need the fly for night fishing on different lines, you can hardly make them too long. Lucky Bastard Flies are made from practically next to nothing material wise. A hint of a body with a bit of flash and hair tied around it, added to a long see through plastic tube – are extremely efficient.

 

Take care not to use too big hooks. Doing this can lead to the hook dangling too low in the water and ultimately making the fish nib at the wing.

 

Shrimp Flies.

The last group of flies I want to mention are the shrimp flies. Partly the Irish inspired ones and partly the GP. The GP is probably known to most and it’s a very efficient pattern to use in the brown waters of the river Varde.          

 

The creator of the GP pattern is Esmond Drury. The fly is tied on a long shank treble hook known as a ED long shank treble. To tie the original one is a bit difficult as he used Gold Pheasant feathers tied against each other, and this kind of feathers tend to twist during the tying down. However it can be done with some patience and practise. Also it can be made with the use of just one feather.

 

Here on my homepage you can find step-by-step instructions for this and more than 75 other flies. As said earlier during the winter months we offer weekly fly tying seminars at our local club, on Tuesday evenings for our members.

 

Last but not least I wish to introduce 2 shrimp flies, tied in the classic fashion (with 3 hackles, the latter made from a red body feather from the Gold Pheasant). It’s a further development of the Grub flies that Pat Curry (of Colerain) started, when he tied his Gold Shrimp and his Red Shrimp, more than 75 years ago.

 

The Wilkinson Light Shrimp is an Irish variant of the classic salmon fly The Silver Wilkinson. This fly catches fish anywhere and everywhere. It doesn’t matter what kind of hook – single, double or treble – you use, or what kind of Tinsel –flat or oval, or what kind of feathers – hen or cock; it simply always gets the fish. Actually this is the Fly on which I caught my very first trout in the river Varde – many years ago.

 

Since then I’ve tied quite a number of these both the classic way and as cone head tube flies.

 

The Olinsson Gold Shrimp, in all humbleness a pattern of my own creation, for the river Varde. This pattern has caught trout, salmon and steelheads, not only for me but for numerous others. As well as for The Wilkinson Light Shrimp, this one is equally good on small tubes.

 

 

I generally use it as the small tube fly when the waters are shallow and warm. Especially in the Skonager part, I’ve had great fun working it on a light single hand rod, while walking along the bank, trying to get to the fish hiding under the low hanging branches.

 

It can also be tied with or without a small cone head. If tied with a cone head and a treble 14, you get a great catching fly, from the moment it hits the water surface. Use it to fish across the current, let it dangle for a time in the current then just add small yanks to the line.

 

With these words I hope to achieve that more of you out there take an interest in the Irish Shrimp Flies and the old Spey and Dee Flies too. Likewise I hope that more of you will come to see, that Fly Tying is a handicraft – that real flies are tied with feathers – and fur is a mean of keeping warm for animals.

 

Till then I wish you all the best for the coming seasons – and for our local Angles and members I look forward to seeing you at our fly tying sessions.

 

Tommy Olinsson