Just a little something to keep you going until the outright winner is posted in a wee while....
As you all know by now, the 'Public Vote' served only to establish a top 10 flies to go through to the final, and face the 'judges'. However, the 'winner' of the public vote had twice as many votes as the second place fly; quite a feat. Interestingly though, neither of them made it into the prizes. What that says about the public vote, the judges, the format in general, or indeed the flies, I'm not entirely sure. I'll leave that for you to figure out. I just thought due to its popularity if nothing else, the winning fly from the public vote deserved a mention, another picture, the dressing and the thoughts of its creator, Mr Steve Cullen (Peepingcaddis) Editor of the people's fly fishing magazine 'Total Flyfisher', and now the 'People's Champion'!
So here it is...
Hook: Partridge Klinhamer Extreme, size 10
Thread: Powersilk
Body: Olive VN Flexibody, cut into 4mm strip
Breathers: Glo-Brite no. 12
Thorax: Natural Peacock herl
Thorax Cover: Brown Body Stretch
Legs: Partridge feather - the darker the better.
Head: Thread wraps coloured with brown pantone pen
Steve says: ''I first saw the ‘Gilling’ technique - that’s what I call it, I couldn’t tell you the real term - in an America magazine dedicated to Fly tying, called Fly Tyer, great title? I can’t remember what the original fly that it was used on but I thought it would look good on Rhyacophila, not the pupa but the larva, grayling love these!
I often fished my home rivers with patterns in this crazy green hue, you’d swear nothing you’d find under the water can be that bright but these are. Back then it was simple tyings. The body of the flies I used - it just looked like a hairy Czech Nymph - was made from a bright green knitting yarn that I could taper quite easily with tension. These patterns suited me down to the ground, were easy to make and I never worried about losing one or two on the riverbed.
One day I thought I’d go a stage further, and try and do something a little more realistic - what was I thinking? - with the ‘gilling technique’ and some pheasant tail legs.
It took a while to tie, about an hour if I remember, but once I had the hang of it, I could rattle them off the vice quite quickly. Eventually I got rid of the pheasant tail legs - too fiddly - and I just pulled a partridge feather over the thorax, this saved lots of time.
This fly works wonders all over the place, for me though it has been particularly effective on the Welsh Dee where Ryacs, in this colour abound.
If there are Ryacs in your river it’ll work just as well there too!''
'The Nymph' - 'The People's Champion'
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