Angling: FLIES FOR FREE.Byline: By SILVER WILKIE HAVING a mate who is a shooter can come in pretty handy for free fly-tying material. Earlier this year, one of my friends, who occasionally travels to the continent to shoot wild boar, gave me a bunch of wonderfully long boar bristles which I used to tie up pot-bellied pig-style salmon flies. It's pretty satisfying to create something using materials that haven't cost you a penny. A friendly game shooter will access you a wide range of fur and feather. The wildfowlers who stand vigil during the winter months on lochs, marshes and foreshores to shoot flighting ducks are well worth knowing. The tiny feathers near a duck's preen glands are much sought after for cul de canard Cul De Canard (CDC) (French for "Duck bottom") is the fluffiest down feathers from the bottom of a duck; they are very buoyant and are used when tying dry flies. They owe their buoyancy to their proximity to the ducks preen gland which secretes an oil distributed by the duck as a dry flies. Feathers from teal and mallard mallard: see duck. mallard Abundant “wild duck” (Anas platyrhynchos, family Anatidae) of the Northern Hemisphere, ancestor of most domestic ducks. The mallard is a typical dabbling duck in its general habits and courtship display. are used in various trout and salmon flies. The shooters who ply their sport in the fields and woods will be able to give you material from grey partridge, snipe snipe, common name for a shore bird of the family Scolopacidae (sandpiper family), native to the Old and New Worlds. The common, or Wilson's snipe (Capella gallinago), also called jacksnipe, is a game bird of marshes and meadows. and woodcock woodcock: see snipe. woodcock Any of five species (family Scolopacidae) of plump, sharp-billed migratory birds of damp, dense woodlands in North America, Europe, and Asia. . Many feathers from the cock pheasant are useful to the fly-tyer, particularly the long tail feathers. Strands of those are used to tie that very successful fly, the pheasant-tail nymph nymph, in Greek mythology nymph (nĭmf), in Greek mythology, female divinity associated with various natural objects. It is uncertain whether they were immortal or merely long-lived. There was an infinite variety of nymphs. . Occasionally, shooters and gamekeepers will also have a pop at magpies and jays. They might be notorious in the shooting world for stealing eggs, but they are also celebrated by anglers as components in flies which catch trout and salmon. Grey squirrels and stoats also provide valuable material for tying salmon flies. You can use hair from squirrel tails either in their natural form or dyed red, yellow, orange, or black to tie a vast number of patterns. The hair from the tip of a stoat's tail is used to tie that great salmon fly of the same name. Apart from shooters, you can get free fly-tying materials from other sources. Many years ago, I was looking for some metallic blue foil to tie up a salmon fly called a parson's dog and was having difficulty in finding it. Eventually, I discovered the perfect solution - a roll of metallic-blue Sellotape type material which my wife had been using to gift wrap a present. To give it extra durability, I coated it with a drop of clear varnish, and I can still vividly remember to this day using it with success. I was being harled down the Tay on a gorgeous spring morning and, as a thrush sang its heart out from the top of a nearby tree, a 20-pounder took the fly and was duly landed. |
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