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Noahguide

Fifty Fly Project

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As I mentioned during posts in the May/June Flies from the Vise I worked my way through Ian Whitelaws book, The History of Fly Fishing in Fifty Flies. My daughter gave me the book last Christmas and after reading it I figured I would give it a go. If I liked what I did, Id mount them in a shadow box, and give them to her this coming Christmas.

I set certain ground rules-

1) As much as possible tie as described, using materials listed. If required go to outside resources for SBS.

2) Dont break the bank trying to find the specified material/hook. Tups indispensable dubbing, as previously mentioned by another poster on this forum, is a little hard to source. With the exception of some JC eyes and Salmon Hooks, I used materials that were on hand. I did not forge my own needles or cut off the eye to tie blind hooks. With all that being said, my flies are at best variants of everything depicted, at worst deviants.

3) Tie smaller stuff on the largest prescribed size hook, for more uniform presentation. (Really who wants to look at a shadow box of Sz 20-28 nymphs?)

4) Tie in the order of the book. (okay that didnt happen, but was followed mostly until material issues caused me to skip).

5) Keep tying until done. (I started on Memorial Day weekend and finished tying on June 9th.)

Overall Project Steps-

1) Tie the flies, as above

2) Photograph them (caused a few re-ties after looking at the photos)

3) Mount them

The book starts with a fly referenced by Dame Juliana Berenes (Stonefly) from 1496, and continues to Stu Tripneys Bionic Bug of 2006. The last fly is a Tenkara fly called the Takayama Sakasa Kebari.

My humble attempts follow, with some comments on things I learned with each fly.

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Lady Caroline, Geordie Shanks, 1875.

The most complicated body construct of anything I've tied. Mixed dubbing, four ribs, this was a pain. I'll most likely try this again because for all the work you can't really see the spacing of the ribs. Subbed modern materials for Heron and Golden Pheasant.

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Black Gnat, Fredric Halford, 1885

This is one of the patterns that I liked enough to tie extras for my box. Chaffinch and starling substituted with modern material.

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Mickey Finn, Charles Langevin, 1890's

(I tried to pay special attention to the proportions based on previous forum discussions)

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