The Patterson Flipper

NEIL PATTERSON says it’s time we knew about a small fly that solves a whole load of flippin’ fly-tying problems

The West countryman was happy to show me the contents of his fly box. It was one of them-thar Richard Wheatley silver anodised boxes with individual compartments, each with its own spring-loaded plastic window that flicks open with such speed it has you jumping back in case the flap flies out of its mounting and hits you in the eye. We both jumped back.

The countryman was standing next to me in a pub in a Cornish village near a wild trout rain-fed stream I’d been invited to fish. My host had given me strict instructions not to reveal its identity or location. Or even allude to it. (So that’s all the alluding you’re going to get from me today.)
“Ever been beaten to death by a flagon of scrumpy,” was how my friend put it. Sounded like a good way to go. But I decided I’d prefer to get invited back.

“Not much luck so far with my old favourite,” my bar-hugging, fly-fishing fellow confessed, creaking open his well-worn Wheatley, flies popping up like out of a toaster. Inside, one flap didn’t need flipping. Instead, it was flapping. The pressure required to punch it down would have split the plastic; such was the size of the hulk that was housed therein. Hoisting it out, the proud owner lowered a shaggy sedge of architectural proportions into my two hands, waiting there like I was receiving communion.

I was about to suggest he should walk it to the park and throw sticks for it until it got tired rather than take it fishing, but I thought better of it. Instead I pulled out my tin and presented him with the fly that had fooled those tricky trout my host and I had caught that morning. Fishing camaraderie, free-flowing furiously.

“This is why I get asked to fish here,” I said flicking him the pattern, the perfect fit for his flapping fly box. “I have the fly.”

“Is this it?” he roared disbelievingly, studying the fly in his palm. “It got no hook!”
“Exactly,” I said. “Spoken like a true wild trout.”

Years ago, Theodore Gordon said “Cast your fly with confidence.” Years later, I’m still saying, “Cast a fly that gives trout confidence.”

As I’ve said before in this column, the most important thing to build into the design of any fly is assurance.

Design is stripping down to the basics. Giving the trout nothing to question. In shape, colour, or size. All the time, avoiding giving the game away. Like showing them a hook. Do this and you may as well stick a microphone into a 200 watt Marshall PA bought second hand from Pete Townshend, stand atop a 20-step ladder and scream, “Coming to get you!” at the top of your voice.

So after simplicity, presenting a trout with nothing it can argue with is top of my design list.
Over the last 30 years, in the pursuit of this principle, I’ve been asking fly tyers: how can you expect a trout to take your perfect imitation if it has a clunky great hook sticking out of it?
It’s why I developed my Funneldun. And no, I don’t apologise for getting gushy about this subject. Because, with dry flies there is no excuse for letting trout know your intentions.

But I never believe I’ve found the ultimate answer to any problem. For this reason, I didn’t stop with the Funneldun. I kept experimenting to see if I couldn’t make the design even simpler.

Now the biggest fly-tying challenge for me isn’t making big flies easier to tie. It’s tying small flies; with smaller movements and less materials. Imitations of the sort of gnatty morsels those wily, West Country wildies under them-thar willows were supping away at ever-so cautiously, as they floated by at glacier pace on inspection parade.

They say: with something smutty trout are putty - in your hands. Nothing could be smuttier than the Flipper.

To worldwide relief, it’s a fiddle-free fly. Simple in design – so easy to tie you’ll want to tie up all your small size dries using this system, which is exactly what I do.
But first, you have to throw out the window a lot of what you learned when
you began fly-tying.
Like, a hackle represents legs. (With the Flipper, it’s wings.) Like, tails represent tails. (With the Flipper, they’re flippers, for flicking the fly over.) And the body? Nothing new here.

So back to that West countryman. Next time I was down, he was there in the pub.

“That fly did the trick, alright,” he said. “But I lost it. Flipping fly-box! Flaps flapped open flicking that flippin’ fly out. D’you have another? What d’you call it?”

”My fly? … Or your box?” I replied. “The names of both start with ‘f’.”


Find out what Neil will be looking out for in July which will prompt him to tie on a Patterson Flipper. Also, follow his tying instructions and the crucial stage of the tying process in the July 2009 issue of Fly Fishing and Fly Tying.