Dissecting a Vintage Classic Fly
By Ryan Houston

about Ryan Houston

I'm from Northern Ireland, i started tying when i was about 10years old thats 21 years ago where does the time go?

I was taught how to put the tying silk on the hook and bind something on but since that its all self taught. i started fly fishing for trout at the same time and along the way i became an irish international twice on the rivers although in the last 5 or so years i have turned to salmon and now quite a bit of pike fly fishing

I started tying classics around the end of 2006 it rapidly improved all my tying and i won the flyfishing&flytying masters league last year 2007/08 and the irish angler open they were my first two tying competitions and i'm hooked

Classics are a real addiction now and the search for materials is never ending although my profession as a veterinarian allows me access to some unusual critters

The small pictures can be clicked on for a detail view

Okay, so some will abhor this and some will love this but i always wanted to do it and i learned some interesting things along the way

I presumed it to be a popham although not exactly i couldnt find a description that matched this one exactly but then again it and the crow were supposed to have some local variations

The wool head was very sparse on the thread and there were 6 or 7 turns they were not sequential they started tight to the wing but some wraps went back over previous ones to make the shape they were also well stuck down so were probably laid on lots of wax

The wing had been finished off with 6 or 7 tight turns half hitched and soaked in varnish or something the loose ends were left sticking out a few mm and the wool head covered them i believe the fly was finished at the wing and left to dry before the wool was added as the thread was not continuous from wing binding to wool dubbing and was a different sort

Taking the wing apart showed it had been put on in 4 parts a bunch of bustard first( left and right strips tied in at same time) then the near wing, the far wing and then a bunch of bustard over all

The main wing bunches comprised 2 layers of slips sort of married together the longer stuff on the inside and the shorter less adhering fibres to the outside like the tippet and lemon wood duck which were above the swan (blue yellow orange)

The hackle had been doubled

The veilings were tied in after the ostrich butts ie over the top of them and there was a but right behind the hackle there were 4 crow at the 1st and 2nd butts and 5 at the front one they were tied in at different points around the shank to envelope it rather than as back to back pairs the stems were left very long and had been stripped

The true colour of the ribs was evident on the undersides as the outsides tarnished the tag and 1st and 2nd were all silver and the 3rd gold the silk was heavy stuff and had been laid onto heavily waxed turns of thread to which it was well stuck on the under layer , silk was wrapped back then forwards over the 1st layer

Ostrich herl buts seem to have had one side of the flue stripped and there were quite a few wraps

There were several half hitches as the tying thread was unravelled

Tail and tail veiling were attached by 3 or 4 turns

The tag was a surprise to me there was no tying thread underlying it instead the tinsel had been wrapped over itself as i would start the tying silk on a hook and only when it reached the tying off point did the tyer wrap tying thread over it to catch it in, i tried this it is not that easy as tinsel is slippy but creates a tidy slim tag

The gut was sharply taperd and wrapped tight in touching turns, near the eye i came across a number of unusual double thread wraps or hitches or something i was at a loss to explain their use

The thread had been started off about 5 mm back from the front of the hook and once caught the loop was placed under and wrappin commenced backwards

From this to this ....

Further comments:

This thing would have survived a bomb there was a ton of wax a load of half hitches and the wing was half hitched and varnished after each bunch was tied in the stubbs were also left long and the wool head covered them not the nice shaping we might strive for now the crow had anything up to 10 mm of stalk forwards under the continuing dressing these things were made to be fished and to last

There was no varnish extending back into the wing but the tie in and forwards seemed to have been fair enough

i forgot to mention the blue and gold macaw horns i think they both came from one side of the same feather one was upside down to maintain the curve inwards

Thunder and Lightning

A thunder and lightening a smaller fly than the last one but a different wing so something to be learned i also took a scott apart that was tied on a return eye hook

again this one was heavily varnished in the wing tie offs after each and every bunch and also after the sides and the topping , the wing was put on as follows near wing 1 layer then varnish then 2 layers of mallard on the far side and varnish and then a 2nd layer of mallard was applied to the near side varnish add jc etc varnish varnish varnish, of the 3 flies i have so far dissected it would appear that the tying thread was only there to hold them in place for shape essentially and the varnish or head cement or whatever was what stopped them pulling out because there was very little attempt to bind down the wing stubbs and certainly not enough wraps on some of the wings for the thread alone to hold the wing in so it stood up to the rigors of fishing

another observation is that whenever possible as many different wing materials as possible were tied in as one, i believe this was because of the thickness of the tying silk so as to reduce bulk and then the "glue" held the stubbs and some sort of head was then fashioned over this to hide it and to some extent to protect it, with so many fibres in a bunch there is no way that the centre ones have any contact with the thread and therefore no friction to stop them pulling out

the jay was interesting it had been a left hackle and had been one of those that is only double sided at the tip, the tip had been doubled and the rest shaved and pithed, there was no reversing of the tying thread

i have also noticed that varnish was liberally used after tying in the tails and given that they seemed to like tying in across the middle of a large crest and then cutting straight across the feather ahead of the tie in point that this was probably good practice given that topping fibres are a bit like teflon and if not still attached to the rachis are very easy to pull out, looking closely at the shape of the varnish at these points it was clear that tying proceeded without waiting on them to dry as the varnish has dried into a cast of the underside of what was wrapped over it

again the tag was not underlayed with tying silk but had been used to "catch" itself to commence wrapping

i found the gut interesting on this one in that the 2 legs were staggered to make the taper easier

From this to this ....

Jock Scott

the scott was interesting in again how much of the wing was tied in in one go and in that the cheeks/sides consisted of a JC nail and 2 kingfisher all tied in in one wrap and then the tag ends were folded back and a wrap placed over them to stop them pulling out, the same was true of the horns

the silks used were thick multi strand stuff and on the scott the tyer had used this to his advantage when tying in the hackle, he had wrapped the silk up to the tie in point or 2nd rib point then applied the hackle and taken a single strand of the silk forward in open turns to place the hackle before wrapping the main silk over this

ingenuity was alive and kicking

i then put the two flies back together using the original wing and topping in the T&L and in the scott i used everything again except i subbed the crow and toucan and had to replace tag silk and herl

From this to this ....