The Classics, Black pennell

[maharg]

I am working in parallel with Ben on this and I would like to offer the Black pennell.
Devised in the last centuary by H. Cholmondeley Pennell. He had a series of colours, brown, yellow and I think green, with the very best black.
It is a perfect fly for a wet fly cast or used with a long leader and a slow retreive in a buzzer hatch.
The classic pattern is shown below,though I prefer it with a seals fur body.

• hook 8-14 wet fly
• tail tippets
• body black silk or floss
• rib silver wire or oval
• hackle black cock or genetic hen

Variant Hutch's Pennell

• hook 12-16
• butt silver tinsel
• tail tippets
• body a strand of long peacock sword feather
• rib fine silver wire
• hackles black hen with sparse white in front

My old bosses favourite variant, that he used to great sucess on Carron dam, was a black seals body and a collar of deep purple seal at the neck.
This fly works really well in a buzzer hatch, filling the space between heavy wets and super sparse buzzers.
I have been getting a good number of fish on a variant that sports a pearl rib over the floss body.

Do you have a fav' variant you would like to share?

[mayflyjunky]

Brillant Fly

My Fav is the same as the above only with a pink tag and sometimes a blae wing but then I guess its not a pennell.

Great fly for Melvin.

[maharg]

I think there is a Melvin pennell, perhaps the boys across the water can help?

[The Bear]

I like mine tied with a head hackle of guinea fowl

[maharg]

Originally Posted by The Bear

I like mine tied with a head hackle of guinea fowl

Is that the melvin pennell or your own variant bear?

[mayflyjunky]

Originally Posted by The Bear

I like mine tied with a head hackle of guinea fowl

Another great Fly Bear
Something very similar took a trout over 5lb off Lough Erne this season.

[The Bear]

Originally Posted by maharg

Is that the melvin pennell or your own variant bear?

No it's one of Sam McGowans patterns called the Marauder maharg ,the body has a black palmered hackle aswell .

[maharg]

Will have to dig the pattern books out then and see if I can find it later. Off to do a wee job

[maharg]

Job postponed, a wee shame

Found that pattern,
Hook, thread and tail as is,
butt green oval
body black ostrich herl
rib green oval
hackle black cock

[benlikestofish]

Nicely tied Graham, Its nice to see the reserection of the Classic threads without me having to do anything!

The Black Pennell is not a fly I've fished although I have tied several. Will be interested to see the responses.

The thing I do remember is that they took a while to tie, as I built up a long taper in silk down the body and had difficulty perfecting the spacing of the fine oval, without it slipping. The taper probably makes no difference to its effectiveness?