A post I saw the other day on Facebook regarding the virtues of traditional wet flies got me thinking about some of our older, traditional wet flies that have fallen out of favour.
With the rise in modern synthetic materials wet flies aren't as 'fashionable' as they once were. Now this doesn't mean that they are no longer used, that has never been the case, but they are certainly less prevalent in many fly boxes these days. That doesn't mean they now catch less fish, far from it, as these patterns are still as effective as they have ever been.
I thought, and I hope you agree, that it may be interesting to revisit some of our traditional flies that have either vanished from the scene completely or are seen less often. This will be the first in a series of posts (time permitting!) looking at the history of some of these flies, their original dressing and, where applicable, the modern dressing. I hope you enjoy it!
To start off I'm going to look at one of my favourite flies and, indeed, the one I caught my first ever Brown Trout on 42 years ago, the Greenwell's Glory.
The Greenwell's (as it is commonly referred to) owes its birth to the joint effort of Canon Greenwell of Durham and James Wright of Sprouston, Roxburghshire. It was Canon Greenwell who plucked the natural fly off the River Tweed and took it to Wright to copy. That was in May 1854 meaning this fly has now been used for over 167 years!! The name was given to the fly by an old Sprouston schoolmaster who christened it the Greenwell's Glory.
The fly is traditionally tied as a winged wet but it is also tied as s spider pattern and a split wing dry fly.
The original dressing was -
Hook - Down eye 10 -16
Thread - Very well waxed yellow silk, used to make the body
Hackle - Coch-y-Bondhu (red/black) hen
Wing - Hen Blackbird
Rib - Gold wire (this can be left off)
Later variants have a red or yellow feather tail which, although not part of the original dressing, don't seem to detract from the flies effectiveness.
The modern dressing differs little with the only notable change being to the wing. As Blackbird is increasingly difficult to source it is now commonly substituted with the pale feather from the Starling wing or the blae feather from a Teal duck wing.
It is not widely know that in the premises of the Trout Anglers Club on Dundas Street (originally on Rutland Street), Edinburgh there are original copies of some of the letters that Canon Greenwell wrote in connection with the fly.
In one of these letters, after receiving an offer from the Fly Fishers Club to sit for a portrait, he wrote "I scarcely think that my merit as the originator of the Greenwell's Glory entitles my portrait to be hung in your club, but if enough brothers of the rod wish it, I have no objection. I have no heirs more grateful to me than the disciples of Isaak Walton"
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