[Søren Rafn]

Inspired by the debate initiated by my Green King, I have chosen to tie a spey fly in the old school way. I am aware that this may have been done before and that this topic emerges from time to time - and that it may for some be a bit annoying. For me however it's a fun variation in the way to tie classic spey flies, and helps me to have a healthy disrespect for the rules, as the classics of ancient times are tied different from how we would choose to interpret a classic fly today. And it keep me in tune of what kind of materials and patterns that fits the bill to become an actual spey fly, contemporary or classic. Here's my interpretation of the classic pattern The Purple King. Feel free to give some constructive inputs on how I can improve my tying skills, I am still in my first year of fly tying and get exalted on the steep learning curve ;-)



The Purple King
Browns Spey flies, 24th Jan 1891, R.B. Marston, Fishing Gazette



Body. – Light purple wool, ribbed with one flat and two thread tinsels; one gold and one silver
Hackle. – Brownish black feather from side of cock’s tail, would contrary to tinsels and crossed by one of them.
Teal at shoulder
Wing. – Double strips of Mallard, short and set apart to allow hackle to appear between them.

Knæk og Bræk ;-)
Søren

 

[fish0n4evr]

First off I will apologize for any grief caused to you by my comments and opinions. I will try and keep that in check.

As for the dressing - Its a dead ringer - I hope you lose it in the worst way possible!

 

[kevin200100]

cool fly, are the wings tied in as per kelson??

 

[Bwana Bill]

Apologies from me as well, for "fanning the fire".

Great tie, Soren! Swing that thing!!

-Bill

 

[kova1385]

Keep in mind you will learn alot more from old books, old fly plates and sites like feathers flies and phantoms (im assuming you found that drawing there) than you ever will on speypages. Alot of modern trends and gospel on online forums, just do it your own way!

VERY nice fly. Looks like it will fish nicely !

 

[flytyer]

Nicely done.

It is nice to see it tied with the lighter purple body it was tied with back when, rather than the darker purple body that seems to be in fashion today.

The head looks a little crowded. Leave a very short amount of shank before the loop of the eye turns up to avoid this.

I believe the spey hackle would have been more black or dark greyish black than brown on the PURPLE KING. The PURPY had brown spey hackle, but its body had more red in it much darker with a distinct red cast.

 

[GR8LAKES FLYER]

OUTSTANDING !!!


Mike

 

[Søren Rafn]

Hi all

Thanks for the feedback and the very nice replies. Absolutely no need for apologies, I don't mind the fuzz and cherish the discussion. I only pointed out that I am aware that as a noob on a new forum it is inevitable for me to stir up discussions that are very well worn in the forum community - but not to me. So if any should apologise it should be I as I have not checked old threads for similar discussions.

My suggestion would be that if this is a frequently surfacing discussion subject, then maybe we should on the forum create a stickie with the definitions of spey flies or similar flies so we can talk about how to tie a classic or a contemporary spey fly using the same reference points and at the same time create a Spey Pages Standard for spey fly tying ;-)

Flytyer:
Thank you! I still have difficulty to know exactly on the shank I should stop the body to leave enough room for the last turn of hackle throat and for the wings. On a #3/0 AJ hook I have had luck with stopping midway on the parallel shanks at the eye end of the looped eye. I would like to be able to stop the tie so the head stops on the horisontal shank leaving about half a eye length bare before the eye bend, if that makes sense?

For the hackle, it is from a bag of spey hackle sub from Aaron. In true light it is brownish black, lacking the red vibrancy of the more brown feathers in the bag, and if I had picked a darker feather it would've had a blackish/greenish metallic tint ;-) If I had not followed Brown I would have chosen a black heron shoulder hackle feather ;-)

For the wing that nobody kindly did not point out has a split ;-) This wing is tied more on the sides than on the top of the fly, to be able to create a slit for the throat and hackle to raise up throug. It took very long time to tie in this wing, more than I had anticipated, believing this split strip wing would be easier - it's not. And one of the challenges was that the mallard strip had a tendency to split in the tigthening of the thread even though I tried to make first turn loose, second turn firm and third turn hard. Maybe there's a need for a wing base at each side to support the wing as not to split so easily. Any suggestions?

My litterature is so far some danish fly tying books by authors like Preben Torp Jakobsen, Poul Friis and Steen Ulnits, mainly aimed at flies for trout and non-salmonine fishes like perch and pike. Of english books I have some ebooks on classic salmon fishing and fly tying from the Gutenberg project and Radencich's "Tying the classic salmon fly" and my bible "classic salmon fly patterns" also by Radencich. So plenty of patterns and some tying techniques, but still tons of techniques to learn ;-)

Knæk og bræk
Søren

 

[Guest]

Old

Fish that: Yes! on a nice slow pool
Good Work

 

[kova1385]

For mallard wings try wetting the butt ends with spit and cut it close to the length you want so the eye on the hook wont get in the way.
To continue what i was sayinh before:
Tiers back in the day had their own style and way of doing things. just do what YOU want. Tie each style of spey fly and decide what you think looks best. Just dont use superglue

 

[flytyer]

Soren,

If you always stop the body about 1/2 up the loop return on the Alec Jackson hook regardless of hook size, it will give you the non-crowded head.