fishydreams

Every now and then I come across another fisherman´s box of flies and think to myself “Christ, I wish I could tie a few like that!”

That was certainly true of Mariano Alcaide´s flies. These live in various multi-compartment fly boxes in orderly rows and remind me of soldiers on parade during an inspection. My own flies do not march in line and are merely tossed into compartments of a couple of fly boxes. They look less like soldiers on parade than battlefield casualties in the bloody aftermath of some military catastrophe.

Mariano is a self-taught tier and tells me he derives as much pleasure from his winter fly tying as his summer fishing. He was kind enough to allow me to take a couple of snaps of his flies and I have added these below.

One interesting pattern is a vividly coloured pattern called a “perdigon” which is the Spanish word for a young partridge. This particular pattern is not a close copy imitation of anything unless, at a pinch, you consider it similar to a mayfly nymph. It is a Spanish pattern that has been around for a few years. It is slim and dense and used to fish in fast water. It is fished by “French nymphing” which is a technique I was introduced to in June this year and which was described in a post called, rather aptly, “French Nymphing.”

I came across some information about tying this pattern online and you can follow this link to find out how to tie it:

http://www.flytying.ro/perdigon-nymphs-simplest-way-to-tie-them/?lang=en

Mariano likes to tie up his own perdigones. They are relatively simple to tie and the body material can be bought at the local “chino” – the shops here that are often run by Chinese families and which sell just about everything.

I have a lot of catching up to do before I can tie as well as Mariano but hope to meet up with him some time to spend a few hours fooling around tying flies. He was kind enough to invite me to his house somewhere in the province of Sevilla (instructions to follow closer to the time.)

Who knows, maybe one day I will be able to inspect a parade of my own.

Perdigones

All spit and polish

Mariano really rates the blue dragonfly for black bass.

Mariano really rates the dragonfly pattern for black bass.