Fly Punk - Issue 3

IF PICASSO WAS
A FISHERMAN
― Stanislas freyheit ―
10 | 11
P
heasant tails are taking fish since
decades. Shrimps are killer nymphs.
Any kind of caddis pattern will bring
you a lot of fish if you perform the good
drift. But, wait a minute, have you ever seen
a real caddis or mayfly larvae on the river?
Haven’t you noticed that their body
was translucent? It means that light is
passing through the bodies of all the
beasties you can find in the river, and we
fish since decades with opaque materials
like feathers and dubbings...
I’m always playing with new tying
materials according to what I observe
on the river. One day, I decided to try to
produce luminous flies in a large range
of colours, from brown to dark green for
trout, to pink and flashy chartreuse from
grayling.
Then I started playing with seed beads,
consolidated with deeply polymerized UV
cure. The first results were encouraging,
because the nymphs where colourful and
translucent, but still, I wasn’t happy with
the general shape of the nymphs.
So I let this project aside for several
months, and spent more time fishing
than trying new projects on the vice. One
day, I decided to put more creativity in
this project, and decide to focus on the
wing bag. I have clearly seen that what
was missing in this new pattern was an
evocation of the wing bag. And finally, by
adding this simple hump on the back of
the fly, I finally gave birth to a minimalist,
but super catchy pattern of perdigon.
Since years, I was restrained by the
colours of the opaque material, and
then suddenly, I entered the luminous
world of seed beads, and millions of
combinations where possible to design
nymphs. But it’s not that simple, because
certain colour combinations are good
for fishing, whereas some don’t. I have a
strange feeling about that, but there are
colours I will never mix to fish for trout.
For example, the copper and blue colour
is a very bad mix to me, whereas a copper
body mixed with an orange spot is a
catchy fly.
So far, one of the best colour associations
I found was orange mixed with a silver
wing bag. The mix between chartreuse
bead an olive body is also a deadly colour
to trigger the attack of ambushed trout. I
am a grayling lover, and when it comes to
grayling nymphs, there’s no colour limit!
Although classic olive, copper and cream
nymphs a very good grayling nymphs,
you can allow yourself to have fun on the
nymph colour choice to fish for graylings.
Never forget that graylings are both
curious and greedy, and they love to see
new flies!
If you are looking for some more light
in your fly box, go for the luminous
perdigons, the trout and graylings of your
river will love to see more light in your
drifts…
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