Better late than never, I guess.
Today, as I was cleaning up my shop (a never ending job) I stumbled across a fly I tied last fall to fish for late summer steelhead.
This fly is a Tribute to two tiers who have both been a great influence in my tying style. First, Jon Harrang. Jon's pattern, the "Copper and Claret" provided the pallet for this fly. Jon is a great friend of mine and a wicked-good tier who has a knack for incorporating Northwest steelhead style into classic salmon fly patterns.
The second tier is Bill Chinn. Bill has had a huge influence on my full dress salmon fly tying. He is an innovator who is not afraid to mix modern materials and techniques into classic patterns and somehow manages to make his flies elegant and sleek no matter what materials are in them. Bill gave me a genetic hackle tip winged, spey-dee style type fly that had a flashabou tail, no rib, a palmered schlappen body hackle and long throat of guinea. It was given to me with strict instructions to fish it (which I cautiously have), but it looked so good and fishy in the water, I knew the pattern and style had unlimited color possibilities.
So, with all that said, the grafting of two creative tying vines has produced this fruit:
Hook: A long dee blind iron
Tail: Copper Flashabou
Body Hackle: Claret Schlappen, palmered
Body: Claret seal
Throat: Black pheasant rump with a turn of claret guinea over
Wing: Two cree hackle tips set low and splayed, dee style