Smoke Fly
Smoke Fly Back in the dim and distant past when I penned The North Country Fly. My purpose was to illuminate lesser known north country fly patterns. Hoping a modern generation of anglers and fly-tyers would embrace these once widely used, but now largely forgotten flies. At the top of this hopefully resurgent fly list …
Family Treasures
I follow in the family tradition of collecting rare fly-tying materials. It’s turned into an obsession. Some early collected materials date to the mid-1800s, whilst others date to the inter-war period. Continually adding items of my own, and keeping the focus on the North Country traditional of fly-tying, the collection has continued to grow through …
Material Changes
As a flytyer, I am always drawn to vintage auction lots that contain healthy proportions of tying materials and associated ephemera. More so if the auction lot is north country related or of Yorkshire origin. I like to buy “working” items rather than simple collection pieces or curios. To my mind, there is something inherently …
Pearsall’s Gossamer Silk
It is safe to say that for the past century a certain brand of silk thread has become synonymous with the tying of traditional north country spiders. I am of course referring to Pearsall’s Gossamer which after two centuries of production, ceased to exist when the company ended the manufacture of its various embroidery silks …
A Guide to Choosing North Country Hackles
A Guide to Choosing North Country Hackles It goes without saying that to dress the finest of flies, you need the finest of materials. And now thankfully, with the growth of online retailing. An expanded choice of flydressing materials is for many of us but a mouse click away. However, this readily available marketplace means …
Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear
Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear The Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear features one of flyfishing’s most ubiquitous dubbing materials and I can’t think of any other flytying material that is so adaptable as the fur from the Brown Hare (Lepus europaeus). For centuries it has been a staple of numerous flytying dressings with one section of its hide …
Snipe Hackles and North Country Spiders
Snipe Hackles (Gallinago gallinago & Lymnocryptes minimus) Snipe hackles are synonymous with the tying of north country spiders, and have along with waterhen and partridge become for many, the very essence of what a soft-hackled spider represents. And no wonder, as various snipe hackles appear in numerous soft-hackle fly dressings from early North Country manuscripts …
Woodcock Hackles & North Country Spiders
Woodcock Hackles (Scolopax rusticola) The Woodcock is one of those quintessential North Country spider hackles, that has due to its scarcity become often overlooked by modern flydressers. However, these secretive and elusive birds offer some of the most distinctive soft-hackles suitable for tying spider patterns, and it is no coincidence that Woodcock hackles feature in many …
Fly Tying In Winter
In the Manchester Guardian of the 1920s, and later within his collected fishing essays entitled ‘Rod and Line’. Arthur Ransome demonstrated the perfect temperament needed for a winter evening of fly tying, and in turn gave us ample food for thought whilst we ourselves are sat before the vice during those long dark nights of …
An hour’s practical demonstration by an expert is of more service to the fly tyer than volumes of written directions.
Dr. T.E. Pryce-Tannatt
Flytying – Read my absorbing blog articles about the art of fooling a fish with a feather. Each blog post features my own philosophy of selecting and combining a range of fly tying materials into something beautiful, unique and authentic.
Fly Tying despite its refinements of both tools and materials has changed very little. Its very essence is still the need to fool a fish into believing that the concoction of silks, fur and feather dressed to a hook, is a real insect.
The Sliding Stream blog features a series of articles about dressing and range of tradition and modern fly patterns for trout and grayling. Classic dry flies, nymphs and north country wet flies are covered in a series of fly tying blog posts. Fly tying techniques and material insights which provide the perfect flies for fishing on the freestone rivers running through the Yorkshire Dales and beyond. So, kick your heels back, pour yourself a glass of whiskey and read a series of flytying articles that share information, tips and techniques about all the aspects of dressing flies for trout and grayling fishing.
Autumn Grayling Black Magic Spider Brook and River Trouting Brown Owl Catskill Dry Flies Crimson Waterhen Dark Needle Dark Snipe & Purple Dry Fly Edmonds & Lee Fishing In Northern Streams Flytying flytying materials Gayle's Heather Fly George Morrel Gold Ribbed Hare's Ear Grayling Flies Hare's Lug & Plover Herbert Palmer Horsehair Casts Joan Wulff John Atherton March Brown Spider Nicholas Fitton North Country Spiders Pearsall's Silk Preben Torp Jacobsen Quill Gordon Reg Righyni Richard Clapham Romilly Fedden smoke fly Snipe Snipe and Purple Split Cane Rods Spring Olive Sunshine and The Dry Fly Treacle Parkin vintage flytying Waterhen Bloa Wharfedale Trout Flies William Baigent William Brumfitt Winter Brown Woodcock Hackles