Traditional wets

[allypally]

Do many of you guys still tie and fish the old traditional flies,up our way i mean things like mallard and claret,teal and green, woodcock and mixed,for sea trout and brown trout through the night
Iam busy tying these types of things which i havn't done for years from size 8 down to 14,finding it very relaxing tying.
Will post some pictures next week when daughter returns borrowed camera

[Aled]

Hi Allypally
I still tie and use for dusk and dawn fishing small mallard and clarets, and the good old black pennel in sizes 10 and 8. Although i tend not to use them in full darkness.
They are i agree relaxing ties, for me because they were some of the first flies i ever tied. I also like to use traditional wet flies like Zulu or Coch y Bonddu for lake fishing.
My close friend Arwel uses a size 10 double coch y bonddu rather succesfully for sewin at dusk.
Tight Lines
Aled

[dB]

Hi AllyPally,

I use Mallard and Clarets and occasionally a silver invicta mainly for back end sea trout fishing when the river is low. Seems to work really well on the Torridge in Devon, also had a 4lb Brown Trout fishing in the dark on the Teifi in september on a mallard and claret afew years ago. I like them fairly sparse, especially the dubbing on the Mallard and Claret makes it look translucent in the water!

dB

[allypally]

That's good to hear, how i learnt to tie, size 8 or 10 Black pennel always seemed to get the better fish for me,claret pennel was good as well

[steelheadnut]

March brown silver body, williams favourite/black pennel, silver invicta, one of my favourite casts.
Peter ross, huw nain, m&c, another outstanding cast for me.
Over the years I've caught more Sewin on these flies than anything else, although I do favour the elongated patterns in use today for the night time sessions, which have been very rare for me the last couple of seasons.
Cap

[cullster]

Mallard and claret was my favourite fly and would never be off my cast when I first started fly fishing on the neath for seatrout , I was given the fly by a gent who basically said fish with this pattern all night and I can guarantee you will catch a fish , I had 3 fish that night on it ~:. then later in the week I had an 8lb der |\ the week after I took 11 fish in one night on it , for some years thats the only fly I would fish with until I started tying flies for myself and started to use the more modern materials then all of a sudden I found myself using the pattern less and less , I should give it go one night to see if it still possesses that magical pulling power :>
Dai.

[allypally]

Managed to get a few here havnt finnished varnishing heads fully yet ,and the first one is a varient with hair wing and synthetic tail,all are on size 14 so every wee bump and blemish shows,when under the camera. Dubbed bodies using scintilla gary borger colour scheme pennel needs we roughen up with velcro on t/bush or dubbing brush

size 14 Dunkeld varient my fathers fav he even had bows to 8lbs back in early 70's with,loved when sedges were on,(that was the bronze mallard and topping version though)

Black pennel, I also like the claret pennel,change claret body and claret hackle

And an all time favourite is the Mallard and claret

[dB]

very nice!

[allypally]

Was reading on another forum about varnishes and its got me wondering for years its been hard as nails,just started using loon and looks great with 3 to 4 coats,but the comments are it goes milky which i thnk means the water is penetrating it,just looking at the pennel above its only had 2 coats
Any thoughts or comments

[Teifi-Terrorist]

I'll be honest with you AP, if it's a fishing fly then I will give it one coat of superglue and job done. Only when doing flies for photography etc. will I apply 3-4 coats.

Rarely does one coat of superglue let me down, and by that time the fly has been lost up a tree somewhere anyway!!! :>

TT.

[ACW]

Conemmara black is one of my go to point fly's for sea trout ,often on a wee double ,thats for last light and early doors, would generally go bigger into full dark.
as too varnishes ,a touch of Sally Hansen as I start the whip finish does it for most of my fishing flies,especially with hair wing s like to get a touch into the tie down area.

[allypally]

Back to the vice ,funny how you forget about flies that worked years ago,connemara black deadly