Grizzly Truth
This pattern, designed
by John Goddard, has become one of the editor's
favourite patterns, so I'll let him take up the
story behind the fly.
The Super Grizzly Emerger first came to my attention
when I started river fishing in earnest, ten years
ago. However, it was a difficult pattern to find
in the books. Although it is mentioned in the
text of John Goddard's excellent Trout flies of
Britain and Europe (published in 1991) the full
dressing is, tantalisingly, not given. Then, when
John Goddard produced Trout Fishing Techniques
in 1996 it features in the chapter on the author's
most popular patterns.
Sure enough, in the text, he mentions fishing
in Montana in 1988 and meeting Craig Matthews
who with John Juracek, had just perfected their
new pattern, the Sparkle Dun. One of the main
and unusual features of the Spakle Dun was its
sparkle wool tail which represented the empty
shuck of the hatching insect. John took the Sparkle
Dun pattern home and used it great effect - particularly
for grayling. Seeing a basic resemblance between
his Super Grizzly and the Sparkle Dun, John merged
the two ideas, replacing the micro-fibbett tail
of the Super Grizzly (which he still uses to represent
the large dark olive and medium olive) with some
pale gold Krystal Flash as a shuck. He discovered
this fly was an extraordinary taker of fish when
dressed on a size 18 hook, and began to use it
whenever small olives were hatching.
My first realisation of the benefits of this fly
was on the Tay in early June, when faced with
constantly rising fish in the crease water of
a well-known salmon pool. Identifying what the
trout were taking was difficult, as it was one
of those balmy, early summer days when just about
everything was on the wing. I went through my
box of dry flies with rapidly decreasing confidence
as various Olives, Yellow Mays, small Sedges,
Black Gnat, Midges and various attractor flies
were ignored with disdain by the rising trout.
Merely irritated by my efforts to cover them,
they didn't even bother to stop rising.
I had probably changed flies seven or eight times
when my eyes fell on the Super Grizzly Emerger
in my box - its nondescript grey body looked like
nothing I had seen on the wing, but I was just
reaching the point of desperation; clutching at
straws.
The effect was immediate. I see from my diary
that, having risen nothing to any other fly, the
Super Grizzly Emerger then accounted for six fish
within a half hour, and continued to take fish
for the rest of the day.
Since that day, the Super Grizzly Emerger has
always been a dry fly that I can turn to whenever
I suspect the hatches John Goddard lists - small
dark olive, pale watery and small spurwing - but
I also would add grannom to the list, especially
when tied with a dark grey fur body. As an added
bonus, this is a fly I'll turn to when I'm not
absolutely sure what fish are rising to. There's
much of the Adams about this pattern - the hugely
popular general purpose dry fly from the States
- with similar combinations of greys, grizzle
and red game, but this is much easier to tie and
probably gets across the stuggling, emerging insect
message better.
It is tied only in size 18, and I sometimes believe
that it is this reason alone that accounts for
its success - simply one of size. It is so easy
in river fishing for an angler to ignore the smaller
options and think big, especially if you can see
bigger insects on the water or in the air. However,
there are many instances on our rivers when sheer
presence in numbers of the smaller insect mean
the fish are almost totally pre-occupied on them.
The day I mention here is typical; the fish had
the pick of the hatches - olives, Yellow Mays,
stoneflies, black gnats - but it was the tiny
grannom pupae that they focussed on, and it was
only the Super Grizzly Emerger that represented
their image closely enough in both colour, size,
form and attitude for fish to take it with confidence.
Full details of tips for tying a better Super
Grizzly Emerger and how to fish it appear in the
April 2004 issue of Fly Fishing and Fly Tying. |
Using brown or purple thread, tie in six
strands of pearly or yellow gold Krystal
Flash, so its projects to a length equal
to 3/4 the length of the body. Stop at
a point between hook-point and barb. |
Tie in a length of clear 2lb BS nylon
as a rib. Trim Krystal Flash stubs short
(equal to what will be the length of the
body. |
|
Catch in 3-4 fibres of the grey goose
herl by the tip. Bind in the roots as
you take the thread up to the shoulder
of the fly.
|
Wind the herl up the body to form an evenly
textured body and catch in with the thread. |
Wind the rib up the body. Catch off and
trim |
Two hackles are blended together - one
is a grizzle cock the other is red game.
*Mick's tip - The genetic cock hackles
that are available today - long stemmed
and short in the fibre make tying size
18 dry flies much, much easier. |
Take the two cock hackles, strip away
fluffy fibres at base, lie the red game
on top of the grizzle, and tie in both
with the good side facing you at a 45°
angle to the shank. |
Take the tip of the red game hackle in
your hackle pliers and make three turns
of the hackle in the space between the
end of the body and the eye, working towards
the eye. Catch in with the thread as you
hold the hackle tip up. |
Now take the grizzle hackle and wind it
through the red game one. |
Catch in with the thread. |
Trim the grizzle hackle tip.
* Mick's tip - Trimming without accidents:
Trimming the hackle tip is made easier
if you open the scissors very slightly
to form a vee and then, holding the stem
vertically under tension, slide the vee
of the scissors onto the stem. It will
cut the stalk quickly and cleanly, and
without accidentally cutting any of the
hackle fibres. |
Build head, whip-finish. |
Varnish the head to complete. |
|
