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Tippet Grub

Hook: Partridge M2 #1/0
Thread: Semperfli 18/0 Black
Tag: Veevus French Tinsel M, Seals Fur orange
Rear Hackle: Tippet wound as hackle and furnace hackle
Rear Body: Olive berlin wool
Centre Hackle: Tippet wound as hackle and furnace hackle
Front Body: Olive berlin wool
Front Hackle: Tippet wound as hackle and furnace hackle
Head: Shellac

Going through the old salmon patterns you find the standard classics that most will recognise as a “classic” salmon fly: the gaudy pattern with married or mixed wing that have a lot of color and flare. But you also have the grub – a pattern that you can follow up to the shrimp patterns of today, the “Ullsokken” salmon fly or various sea-trout patterns that we use here in scandinavia.

Going back through the history of salmon patterns I have come over some grubs from time to time and have wanted to start tying some up to carry with me in the box. The first is here: the tippet grub, tied it up in slightly different hackle length to start testing it out in the water once the season starts. This is a pattern I can see working good in this color, but also with oter color combinations – I will try with both black and orange colored tippet later on for variations over this pattern.

Sunturn Sunrise

Hook: Partridge M2 #2/0
Thread: Semperfli 18/0
Tag: Silver, black silk
Tail: GP, red & yellow swan
Butt: Ostrich
Body: black, yellow, orange and red sealsfur
Rib: Silver
Throat: Red and black
Underwing: Black GP tippet
Wing: Kori, yellow, orange and red swan
Topping: GP
Head: Shellac

Another winter solstice and the third sunturn fly I have made: each year I grab a bottle of Nøgne Ø “Sunturn Brew” and create a pattern based on the fact that we are on the darkest day of the year. I still have some bottles left of this beer that Nøgne Ø brew only on this shortest day of the year, and this year it had been stored for just over 2 years before the winter solstice.

The past years I have created a pattern that, looking back at it, reflect the state of my progression in fly tying: the first year it was a spey, last year it was a ranger. This year I have done a lot of married wings and getting into the classic salmon patterns, so it was obvious what I had to do this year! With the dark days and the focus on the sun turning to brighter days it was again the focus on black/yellow/red colors that dominated the pattern, maybe more yellow/orange/red this year than the years before. This one will go into my collection as the blueprint, but I’ll create some more for fishing.

The beer is everything I want in a winter beer: dark with sweet malts and a long full aftertaste. The balance and complexity is great, so it goes very well together with flytying on a dark winter night!

 

https://flytyer.org/eide/pattern/sunturn-sunrise

The Col. Blyth

I follow Davie McPhail on youtube (something I would recommend to do), he publish a lot of good patterns and gives a lot of good insight on how to dress a fly. This one showed up not too long ago and the colour combination is one that immediately got my interest: a easy pattern to tie, and a pattern that will work in the river under the right conditions. I chose to tie on a up-eye salmon hook (Mustad 80500-NPBL #1/0) instead of the bomber hook that Davie tied on, but the pattern is the same. Instructions on how how to tie it in the video below:

You always need more than one:

Francis #18

Hook: Partridge X2b #18
Thread: Sheer 14/0
Feelers: Boar
Tail: Brown Calf
Body: Sheer 14/0 Red
Hackle: Brown
Rib: Veevus XS

Every now and then you need to go small: the #18 francis is a example on just how small you can go when targeting salmon. I haven’t fished this small, but for the 2017 season I’ll have some smaller patterns tied up down to #18 to bring with me when I go north. The hook itself is well built when you have a closer look at it – for its size you can feel a strength that very few other hooks in this size can demonstrate. The small patterns is very popular on Iceland and up in norther Norway, so this is not something untested when targeting salmon.