Speaking of Flick Variants flies.....
I never could quite understand why Art said that his little
Blue-Winged Olive is "actually a Dun Variant, but with an olive body."
> The two patterns, side by side, seem so different to make that comparison.
The Blue-Winged Olive
The Dun Variant--with it's extremely long hackle
Another thing that I suppose further supports my statements that tiers often evolved/altered/changed materials and tying methods---The thread.
Flick listed
Olive Silk in his
Blue-Winged Olive dressing. Now, don't get too anal-esc
about your tying silk shades.
The Blue-Wing Olive below, tied by Art himself (I've focused in on the head here, to make my point) was tied with
Black thread. I know he tied it, because it was sent with a letter by Art.
Art's Thread on a Blue-Winged Olive
And speaking of Flick fly heads
I made a point in
Tying Catskill-Style Dry Flies that Art didn't use a
turle knot space (the tiny clean area of hook shank just behind the hook eye---for those here not familiar with that feature). If you see that little space on a Flick-tied fly---it's just because he ended short on his tie -off near the hook eye.
Art tied his flies with
full heads---what I called
Bullet Shaped Heads. However, I like tying my patterns with the turle-knot space. No need to get too anal-esc here either
Bullet Shaped Head on a Art-tied Cream Variant
And notice, by the way, his
cream hackle shades were not almost white as you sometimes see out there------his cream---and all of our "cream" flies---back a few decades--had what is almost a "yellowish" off-white shade---it had sort of a
yellowish tint ).
"Cream"---in the "old days" was
Cream. Not that white hackle crap you see labeled today. Leiser had Cream pretty accurately described:
"An off-white with a
yellowish eggshell cast to it," as Eric wrote.
Thanks man, CJ
