I first saw this reversing the body on the shank in Tying Emergers by Schollmeyer & Leeson. I have not explored this enough, perhaps some of you have. Found another example of this tie on the excellent Kossiedun blog re Roy Christie’s Reversed Emergers pattern.
Reverse Pattern (Parachute Style)
Dry Fly @ Zsolt Blogspot
I have alluded to this several times before here about my intrigue with SE Europe. I find the region to be beautiful and possessing seemingly amazing fly fishing opportunities. Gal Zsolt’s passion for the sport in borne out in his tying, fishing and photography. I only recently discovered part of my family on the maternal side passed thru this region during our family’s history. I have studied the Banat region with great bittersweet fascination.
Those who care will know, and those who don't know I don't care much about.
Whether a ‘hot spot’ is part of the natural process or stands in contrast to naturals, the addition of hot pink, red, orange or chartreuse can enhance the success of a pattern. Honestly, sometimes the myriad patterns and success of just about any pattern at some point makes one back away and mentally regroup. I mean the scruffy creation your five year old son or granddaughter tied can catch a fish at some point. Presentation and location being so critical, the pattern is often less significant. But, because of the never ending puzzles we seek to enjoy solving, we all come back to the vise to create, plot and contrive to trick the fish. Whether a Green Butt Skunk, Egg Sucking Leech or a Czech Nymph with a hot spot at the mid point of the shank, the value of having some patterns that either contrast to the naturals or match egg laden or egg eating creatures is worth having.
Qwerty Keyboard
Hmm, well perhaps you recall the typewriter that was typical until the last few decades. If you jammed too many keys down you created “upstroke clashes” The Qwerty keyboard structure we use today was created to slow down the typist in order to avoid jammed keys. We still use the Qwerty keyboard today despite more efficient available concepts (Dvorak). Just found this interesting as so many of us are slaves to this gizmo.
Don Elder of Gresham, Oregon stood the test of spey casting under pressure on the Sandy River, east of Portland. Mr. Elder was in Oxbow Park practicing his spey casting as the river was running high, off color and with low prospects of meeting a Summer run steelhead. As Elder was casting he heard screaming and soon became aware that a man was floating down the river hanging onto a small child and nearby was a woman also being carried down river. Elder immediately loaded and positioned a cast to the woman. She grabbed the line and Elder slowly worked her via careful retrieves toward shore. Bystanders helped remove the woman from the river.
The man and child were further down river now, so Elder hustled down river to intercept the man and child. He again successfully placed a cast, this time to the man holding the small child. Elder pulled the man and child in far enough that they were brought to safety. Ironically, some (there is always one) witness thought poorly of Elder. Why would he continue to fish while people were drowning?
Now Elder was not done. In full fly fishing regalia, Elder ran to his car and hopped in alarming his wife (standard repository of fly fisherman’s wife, usually reading or snoozing). He quickly drove to the park headquarters to request assistance for the people pulled or retrieved, so to speak, from the river.
High water/runoff dangers abound for rafters, boaters and waders. Don Elder is a hero to those three folks, the bystanders and now to us.
