Substitutions

[Steve Walker]

Having recently started tying my own flies, my stocks of materials are finite. I've obtained the correct materials for the flies I particularly want to fish with, but I've also been trying a number of patterns more because they use a technique that I want to learn than because I particularly need to churn out lots of them. As a result, a few fibres from this perhaps ends up as a few fibres from something else similar.

All well and good when I'm tying something to learn a technique and the objective is to produce something that looks right to me on the vice - I realise that the effectiveness of a given fly may be due to how the particular materials from which it is made behave underwater, and what looks the same to me in air might not look the same to a trout underwater. With that in mind, what (if any) substitutions are you generally happy to make if you don't have quite the boomslang skin and lacewing fly that the classic pattern calls for?

[g bigtrout]

Hen pheasant for me mainly.



Grey duck wing or anything i have lying about me, i tend to go more for shape than colour.

[steve collyer]

I think that a hungry trout cares not one bit about which type of bird the feather fibres for your nymph wing cases came from, or the fact you've only used an Indian cock hackle for that Beacon Beige & not one from a £75 genetic cape.

So long as you have confidence in your ability you'll be fine.

[Scratch]

I can't think of anything, either rare, ancient, or extinct that I have a hankering for. I honestly think alot of the old/rare feathers, were used simply because they were pretty, and available at the time; not for any particular fish-charming properties. Indeed, I think some of them were sought and used purely because they were rare.... bit of a kudos thing

I'm more than happy with what's available today. Even my humble collection of fur and feather will keep me catching fish and give me scope to both replenish and experiment for a thousand years.

There's some stuff that there's simply no substitute for... Jungle Cock for example, and seals fur. I hope those are available for many a moon.

Blue Jay is one thing I'm happy to sub these days... there are those who say 'no way', but the more I think about, the less critical I think actual Jay is. Sure, it's a lovely feather and on the right fly gives a great effect, but I don't think it's irreplaceable. Theres some lovely hen around these days, in some interesting shades of blue. Also - Guniea fowl, Partridge, etc.

[Chris Reeves]

The only thing I can think of that i won't use a sub for is jungle cock, nothing comes close to it. that said i'm not convinced it is necessary all the time.
With everything else, the rule is "if it looks right and fishes right then use the cheaper of the two options!"

Cheers

[madjoni]

Hi Steve Walker
I must say this,even though we east Europian guys are masters for substitutions when ft materials is issue but nothing can replace natural hackle,hares ear,peacock,partridge.....list is long

[Steve Walker]

Interesting comments chaps, thanks.

[maharg]

Agree with Scratch about using what you have got to create a fishing fly. When it comes to tying an exact pattern to show people, I think every effort should be made to match the original. If not, it should be labelled as such,or called a variant.
No substitute for jungle cock and peacock sword feather and perhaps peacock herl.
Just get tying mate and dont worry to much about it though.
Anglers from years ago would have used what they had, and their eyes would be popping looking at what we have today.