Fishing the North Country Flies.

You wonder perhaps why I tie such old flies from around the middle of 1800, but my reason is this:

Since then the fishes have not changed, the same is the case with their food - the insects - and the watery element in which they live is also nearly the same! Why shall we then in each amgling magazine see socalled new patterns! Nothing is new - except for the used materials, where flytyers in every shop selling decorations for christmas trees etc. every day can find something new; but that is not to say that it's better than the materials used many years before.

These old flies for which we use the term 'North Country Flies' are so effective and simple to tie, that one wonders why they are not used much more to day. They are very lively - the materials of which they are tied move under the influence of the sleightest current and by this attract the attention of our victims - the trout, grayling and others. Moreover the flyfisher of to-day have the possibility to use tackle so sophisticated, that he has the possibilty to fish the flies even beter than was the case at the time of their creation.

We can buy flyrods of a length and weight without comparison: A 10' rod only with a weight of 120 grams; lines that float a whole day through and casts where we can choose the finest tips of o.10 - o.12 mm with a breaking strength of nearly 2 pounds. With this equipment we can with precision place the fly wide in front of the fish and with a cast where the tip is nearly invisible, and the long rod let us 'guide' the fly and the sunken cast right over the fish, with very little of the flyline in touch with the current.

Try them - fish them as a living insect - and you will be surprised of your results.

P.S. I know for sure, that an American Sylvester Nemes has written two books about these flies.

Of further reading I can recommend:

Leslie Magee: "FLY FISHING   The North Country Tradition".1994. Will be published in a Deluxe Edition in 2001 with all the flies mentioned tied by a famous flytyer.

W.S. Roger Fogg: "A Handbook of North Country Flies". 1988.

same author  "The Art of the Wet Fly". 1979.