Carrot Fly; Carrot and Black Nymph; or, Carrot Nymph

This dressing substitutes yellow-green dyed quail undercovert for the green parrot Skues prescribed for the tail and yellow-green dyed covert in place of the poultry hackle.

Hook:		12-14
Thread:		Primrose
Tail:		Olive dyed quail covert fibers
Body:		Rear 1/3—pale yellow wool; Middle 1/3—hot orange wool; Front 1/3—green seal fur
Hackle:		Olive dyed quail covert
		G. E. M. Skues introduced anglers to the Carrot Fly in the journal of the London Flyfisher’s Club in 1912 as proof of “what asses trout are.”  In 1975 winter issue of Fly Fisherman magazine, T. Donald Overfield notes that the response to the fly was mixed. Some anglers questioned whether Skues was having a laugh; others, “perhaps shamefacedly, cast it to the trout, with surprising results.” Overfield notes that the “tying is not difficult,” but advises fly tiers to “aim for a steeply tapered body, as shown in the ‘natural,’” a carrot: “The silk is waxed primrose (1). Tie in two strands of green parrot feather-fiber, or its equivalent, (2) and return the silk up the hook three turns. Tie in a length of pale yellow wool (3), bringing the silk forward to one-third the length of the body. Wind the wool forward and secure (4). Tie in a length of hot-orange wool (5) and take the silk up the hook for another third. Wind the wool up to the silk and secure, (7). Now tie in a length of greenish seal’s fur dubbing (8), and a short, fibred hackle dyed olive-green (9). Wind the dubbing and secure. Take a few turns of the hackle round the hook shank and secure with a whip-finish (10).” Jay Zimmerman traces the history of the Carrot Fly in The Best Carp Flies: How to Tie and Fish Them (2015). He credits Skues with developing the first, but notes that Skues only casually mentions his Carrot Fly in the The Way of a Trout with a Fly (1921), where he called it "the famous Carrot fly." (Presumably, Skues deferred to this short-hand reference because of the fly's popularity following its introduction in the journal of the London Flyfisher's Club nine years earlier.)  For whatever reason, American fly tiers have exhibited a strong inclination to imitate garden produce in the pursuit freshwater species. Zimmerman notes that "Reuben Cross from Neversink, New York, introduced a nymph in his book Tying American Trout Lures (Dodd, Mead & Company, 1936) he called the Carrot and Black" fifteen years after Skues' Way of the Trout with a Fly (and twenty-four years after Skues' club journal article). Zimmerman cites Cross's directions: "'The Carrot and Black is tied with brown hackle tail, carrot-colored body with black Chenille shoulder and dun hackle wound on the same as with a wet fly. After you have finished off with the tying silk take your scissors and clip out the top and bottom whisks, leaving the side legs." Later a similar dressing, the Carrot Nymph as Elsie Darbee tied and named it, showed up in A. J. McClane's classic McClane's Standard Fishing Encyclopedia (Holt, Rinehart And Winston, 1965).   Zimmerman also suggests that Randall Kaufmann further confused the dressing in American Nymph Fly Tying Manual (1975) by calling it the Carrot Fly and giving it a dubious lineage. Kaufmann noted that the an "old standby for years in the east" and, incorrectly, only recently in the west, and his dressing emphasized "halloween colors" untrue to Cross's American original that "account for many fat rainbows and brookies from pond and stream alike" More confusing was that Kaufmann's explanation of the dressing "is a slight variation from the original," presumably Cross's. His fly uses black hackle for the tail and unclipped front hackle, and orange tying thread with a black chenille thorax for the body.

Eric's Beetle

This dressing substitutes a synthetic dubbing for peacock herl and starling hackle for hen. 

Hook:		12-16
Thread:		Black
Body:		Primrose worsted wool underbody overwrapped with bronze Arizona synthetic peacock dubbing
Tip:		Primrose worsted wool underbody showing at the tip
Hackle:		Starling shoulder hackle
		In the 1975 Late-Season Angling issue of Fly Fisherman magazine, T. Donald Overfield gives a brief history and dressing instructions for a Eric’s Beetle, a fly designed in 1940, the “brainchild” of Eric Horsfall Turner. Overfield describes Turner as “an observant entomologist, a world-class competitive caster, an erudite writer and an accomplished fly dresser.” After observing a live beetle draw a strike where his floating flies had not, he studied and designed his artificial beetle. Turner made careful records of “all his dressing experiments and river tests.” He determined that “yellow wool” was the best color for the tip and “took more trout, under all conditions, than any other color,” and he noted also that "the peacock herl body proved superior to ostrich or marabou." Overfield gives these instructions for dressing the fly that correspond to a series of numbered instructions: “Take a #12 hook and wind the black silk (1) to a point opposite the barb. Tie in a length of yellow wool (2). Take the silk forward for one eighth of an inch (3).Give the wool two or three close turns behind the silk to form a yellow butt (4); do not cut off the waste end. Tie in three peacock herls (5). Wind the silk to the starting point and tie in a small black hen hackle (6). Now wind the wool backwards and forwards (7) to provide a plump body. Take the herl (8) and wind in close even turns over the wool (9). Give the hackle only three turns (10) and complete the fly.” Overfield notes that Eric’s Beetle is best fished “upstream, with the leader greased to within three or four inches of the tippet point; as the fly drifts downstream under overhanging foliage, sinking the while, it often brings surprising results.” Such a technique would likely work well for other beetle patterns like the Marlow Buzz, Starling and Herl, Bracken Clock, or perhaps T. E. Pritt's Black Snipe.

Cow-turd Flie; or, more commonly (and recently), the Cowdung

This fly uses thread color for the body that James Leisenring’s dressing prescribes and body dubbing in the colors most dressings historically suggest, while maintain the "full and rough" body Leisenring recommends.( Earlier dressings prescribe colors rather than specific furs.) It uses tan hen hackle to strike a medium between Charles Cotton’s, James Chetham’s and Leisenring’s dressing for both wings and hackle.

Hook:		12-16
Thread:		Orange
Abdomen:		Medium hare’s ear mixed with golden stone antron on orange Pearsall’s Gossamer Silk
Hackle:		Tan hen’s back, very lightly speckled
		Although the Cow-turd or Cowdung is traditionally a winged wet fly, its simplicity lends itself to a soft-hackled dressing. It is tied to represent a terrestrial (Scatophaga stercoraria, T. Donald Overfield explains) born most prolifically near pastures where cattle have recently grazed. The insect’s point of origin is the fly’s namesake. Charles Cotton gives a dressing in his additions to Izaak Walton’s Compleat Angler (1676). It is a May dressing: “We have then the Cow-turd flie; the dubbing light brown, and yellow mixt, the wing the dark grey feather of a Mallard.” James Cheatham provides the almost exactly the same dressing in the list of flies he appends to a later edition of his  Anglers Vade Mecum (1681): “Dubbing light Brown and Yellow mix’d, the Wings of the dark Grey Feather of a wild Mallard.” The pattern is essentially unchanged since Cotton published his dressing. T. Donald Overfield provides an overview of this history in his “Flies of Yesteryear” column in the Spring Special issue of 1977. He explains that “Generations of fly tiers have not ignored the Cow Dung, as evidenced by the countless dressings described in famous angling books. Besides Charles Cotton, Richard and Charles Bowlker mention it in The Art of Angling (1747). Other historic works that included dressing of this fly are Robert Salter’s The Modern Angler (1811), C. Bainbridge’s The Fly Fishers Guide (1816, Alfred Ronald’s Fly Fishers Entomology (1836), G. P. R. Pulman’s Vade Mecum of Fly Fishing (1849), W. Blacker’s The Angling Flies (1853), J. Jackson’s The Practical Fly Fisher (1854), Henry Wade’s Rod Fishing with Fly (1861), St. John Dick’s Flies and Fly Fishing (1873), James Ogden’s On Fly Tying (1879), and F. M. Halford’s Floating Flies and How to Dress Them (1886).” James Leisenring also gives a dressing of the Cowdung in The Art of Tying the Wet Fly and Fishing the Flymph (1941). He notes that “The Cowdung is not a water-bred fly but it is blown into the water and taken eagerly by the trout in streams flowing through meadows where cattle are grazing. If the weather is open they appear from March throughout the season and they may be seen in various sizes clustered on every cow dropping. The wings are almost transparent and should be imitated with the land rail feather that has the pinkish tinge of the natural fly. The body should be dressed rather full and rough. HOOK  12,13. SILK  Orange. HACKLE Ginger hackle similar to the color of the body. BODY  Yellow crewel wool, seal fur or mohair mixed with a little brown fur to soften the glare and give the whole a dirty orange tinge. WINGS Land rail slightly longer than the body and sloping back close to the body, glossy side out.” In Wet Flies (1995), Dave Hughes lists a more modern dressing of the Cowdung: “Hook: 2x stout, size 12-16. Thread: Black 6/0 or 8/0 nylon. Hackle: Brown hen. Body: Dark olive and cinnamon fur dubbing, mixed, or Hare-Tron #24, Olive Brown. Wing: Gray goose or mallard wing quill sections.”

Black Gnat

Hook:		16-20
Thread:		Red or wine
Body:		Black silk or fibers from a crow’s secondary wing feather
Hackle:		Starling shoulder feather
		The dressing above is follows James Leisenring’s pattern for the Black Gnat in The Art of Tying the Wet Fly and Fishing the Flymph (1941). His pattern in full calls for: “HOOK  14, 15. SILK  Crimson or claret. HACKLE Purplish black feather from the shoulder of a cock starling. BODY  Black silk or two or three fibers from a crow’s secondary wing feather. WINGS Dark starling optional.” Harfield Edmonds and Norman Lee include a delicate dressing of the Black Gnat as no. 22 in their Brook and River Trouting (1916): "WINGS.-A few fibres from a light blue Hen's hackle put on as a single wing. BODY.-Black silk, No. 9. LEGS.-Rusty black Hen's hackle. HEAD.-Black silk. Middle of May to end of August. For close days.” The Black Gnat has been a popular fly in angling literature. In Minor Tactics of the Chalk Stream (1910), G. E. M. Skues dressed it simply, in a manner that Leisenring seems to have followed: “Wings: Palest snipe rolled and reversed. Body: Black tying silk with two turns of black ostrich herl or knob of black silk at shoulder. Legs: Black hen or cock starling’s crest, two turns at most. Hook: No. OO.” John Waller Hills traces the evolving popularity of the Black Gnat in his History of Fly Fishing for Trout (1921), but he notes how hard imitating the insect is and how unsuccessful most imitations seem to be: the “fly has three characteristics; a small body, transparent wings, and, in the male, particularly short ones . . . These three characteristics are the fly: and every one of these three Cotton observed and copied. After this it is hardly necessary to trace the fly down. The commonest dressing, however, not I think the best, is black ostrich herl body, and either some sort of clear wing, or more usually wingless, with a dark or black hackle. So Bowlker dressed it: and so did Francis and many others. Nearly every writer agrees that it is a difficult fly to copy. It is a most unsatisfactory fly to fish with.” T. Donald Overfield similarly traces the history of the fly, but tracks it through five different historical dressings to the modern day in his column “Trout Flies of Yesteryear” published in Fly Fisherman magazine. He lists a “present day version,” which is a dry fly pattern by Commander C. F. Walker in The Art of the Chalk Stream (1968). Prior to that, R. S. Austin, who tied flies for G. E. M. Skues and developed the famous Tup’s Indispensible, included a Black Gnat pattern “in his unpublished papers dated 1890.” F. M. Halford, too, tied a Black Gnat that he described in Floating Flies and How to Dress Them (1886). Overfield, like Hills, makes note the Bowlkers’ eighteenth-century dressing for the Black Gnat, as well as it's earlier precedent, the dressing that Charles Cotton includes for March in his 1676 additions to Izaak Walton’s classic Compleat Angler. He dressed it: with “the dubbing either of the fur of a black water-Dog, or the down of a young black water-Coot, the wings of the Male of a Mallard as white as may be, the body as little as you can possibly make it, and the wings as long as his body.”

Greenwell's Glory

This dressing would have been an earlier season dressing, given the light olive body and furnace hen hackle. (For this pattern, "furnace" means a hackle with a dark list and cinnamon to dark red tips.)

Hook:		12-18
Thread:		Primrose yellow
Rib:		Small gold wire
Body:		Light olive or primrose Pearsall’s Gossamer Silk, waxed
Thorax:		Dark rabbit fur
Hackle:		Furnace hen hackle
		In Minor Tactics of the Chalk Stream (1910), G. E. M. Skues prescribes the standard dressing, and emphasizes its adaptability. As the season progresses, the tying silk should be less waxed so that the body is more yellow than olive; the dark furnace hen hackle having a “black centre, with cinnamon points” of the spring should be replaced by a medium honey dun throughout the summer. In Skues' dressing, the wings also get lighter as the season progresses. "Wings: Hen blackbird, dark starling, medium starling, or light starling (lighter as season advances). Body: Primrose or yellow tying silk, more or less waxed (lighter as season advances), ribbed with fine gold wire. Legs: Dark furnace hackle; black centre, with cinnamon points, to medium honey dun (lighter as season advances). Hook: Nos. 1, 0, or 00." While the Greenwell's Glory is traditionally tied as a winged wet fly, I have followed Sylvester Nemes’s suggestion for tying the Greenwell’s Glory in Two Centuries of Soft-Hackled Flies (2003).  Nemes suggests substituting a rabbit fur thorax for wings. The result is a tidy soft-hackled fly. Many anglers from the latter part of the nineteenth century onward recommend the fly. In the 1976 pre-season roundup issue of Fly Fisherman magazine, T. Donald Overfield recalls the origins of the Greenwell's Glory which, he suggests, "must be one of the most famous flies in the history of fly fishing." It was originally tied as a wet fly by James Wright, "a superb flytier who lived on the banks of the Tweed in Sprouston" for Canon William Greenwell, "an ardent angler who frequented the Tweed in Scotland" and whose success with the dressing became the namesake of the fly. Overfield explains that the "pattern was devised on fine day in the month of May in the year of 1854. Canon Greenwell had fished all day with little luck, retiring despondent to Wright's cottage, fishless, but with a sample of the natural that the trout were taking so avidly. History does not record what the insect was, but Wright reproduced it that evening in fur and feather. The next day the worthy Canon returned from the river with a full basket of fine trout, all taken on the yet-nameless fly. Excitement prevailed and a party convened to christen the fly. The local school-master suggested 'Greenwell's Glory,' and so it became."

Tup's Indispensable; or, Tup's Nymph

This dressing follows Leisenring's version of Skues's Tup's Nymph, except that it uses a synthetic and natural dubbing thorax and dove hackle rather than dun cock's hackle. (The picture below the dressing of the fly above gives a slightly better sense of the coloration of the materials in the dressing.)

Hook:		14-18
Thread:		Light Cahill
Tails:		Very small light-blue hen hackle or medium-dark honey dun hen hackle
Abdomen:		Silk buttonhole twist – Coats and Clark’s 157-A primrose yellow, size D
Thorax:		Red fox squirrel belly with lavender and tangerine Needleloft plastic canvas yarn
Hackle:		Dun mourning dove hackle from the neck or shoulders
		In The Art of Tying the Wet Fly and Fishing the Flymph (1941), Leisenring dressed the Tup’s Indispensible as a nymph: “HOOK      13, 14. SILK           Primrose yellow. HACKLE   Very small light-blue hen hackle or medium-dark honey dun hen hackle. BODY        Halved: rear half of primrose-yellow buttonhole twist; thorax or should of yellow and claret seal fur mixed dubbing spun on primrose-yellow silk. TAIL           Two honey dun hackle points.” Leisenring derived his pattern from that of G. E. M. Skues and R. S. Austin. In his Minor Tactics of the Chalk Stream (1910), Skues gives a partial dressing, “as near the dressing as I am at liberty to give,” for the pattern Austin introduced to him and, afterward, allowed him to name. Skues gives this dressing for the Tup’s Indispensable: “Primrose tying silk lapped down the hook from head to tail, a pale blue or creamy whisk of hen’s feather as soft as possible and not long, three or four turns of coarser untwisted primrose sewing silk at the tail, body rather fat, of a mixed dubbing of a creamy pink, . . . and a soft blue dun hen hackle, very short in fiber, at the head, the dressing being preferable finished at the should behind the hackles.”  In the 1976 spring special issue of Fly Fisherman magazine, T. Donald Overfield explains that "Skues wrote to Austin to request the dressing for this fly, in particular the rather odd body dubbing material. Austin replied and sent Skues a small bag containing the dubbing mixture. The mixture, one of the more exotic known to 20th century fly-dressers, had as a primary constituent the soft hair taken - possibly under protest - from the scrotum of a white ram, or 'tup' as that animal was called in Britain - hence the name given the fly by Skues!" For both Skues and Leisenring, this body material made an excellent and effective thorax, despite the difference in materials that Leisenring used in the thorax of his nymphal pattern.