From time to time I get a phone call or email asking whether I have a few flies I could pass on to some friends who are looking to do something a little different… Anglers who solely fish for rainbow trout on a stillwater or trout and grayling in flowing water who want to target something else, a new challenge.

Usually I have flies which are adequate and can pull from my box and will give them great enjoyment from their intended species. A friend of a friend gave me text last week asking for some sewin flies as he’s got a few nights lined up lined up on the famous river Teifi. Not having done much sea trout fishing at all, I had the materials and hooks so thought I’d get on the case and put together a selection of flies for him.

He give me the details, what colours and sizes he wanted and a few little tweaks here and there. Basically they were bog standard sea trout flies, black, red, silver and jungle cock. What struck me was that he wanted something stiff as the throat hackle, don’t ask me why, but he insisted.

One thing I found when tying these in the past is the winging material seems to be solid, here I’ve used dyed black squirrel and you’re thread would determine whether or not you had a good or bad fly. I love using UTC 70 for all my wet fly work basically what these flies are just on a larger scale. As the UTC is flat, untwisted and waxed the squirrel wing would sit lovely on the hook but won’t bite down into the wing and produce a solid, robust feature. After some gentle pulling on the wing it would fall out, so after the first fly I swapped threads to UNI  8/0 which is just as fine but has a twist, this twist would pull and cut into the material securing it perfectly in place with no slippages.

It’s great to tie flies other than you’re usual patterns, using different techniques and materials to achieve something so beautiful. Who know’s maybe Salmon and Salmon flies could be on the cards next?