A place to discuss the collecting and tying of classic flies, the tyers who made them famous, the tools, materials and techniques they used as well as the waters they were designed for. While classic is generally used to describe old things, classic is also used in the sense of first class or in the highest form. Therefore a fully dressed Salmon Fly, or a Carrie Stevens Streamer are just as much classics as a Chernobyl Ant would be. Enjoy the forum.
Doublehauler lent me this fly. I photographed it today. Will send it back to him over the weekend. Thank you Jim!
Watching Al work I remember he cut prepared and organized all the needed materials for several dozen flies in advance. He stacked the elk hair bundles and then stored them neatly in a plastic tray of empty 22 caliber rifle shells. And then and only then began tying.
Thanks to both pitt and doublehauler for sharing this work! As you may have guessed, Mr. Troth has been a BIG influence on my tying. Once he had all materials prepped, could average 3 1/2 to 4 minutes per elkhair. His reverse palmering technique was a reoccurring theme in a lot of his flies. thanks again gentlemen .dborjas
I like the tip of placing the hair in 22 shells, thanks for the photos.
Mark
He who shall not be able to make a trout fly, after studying these diagrams and directions, must be deficient either in brains or in manual dexterity. : Edward Fitzgibbon 1853
Al would actually stack a whole lot of them at once in an array of empty 22 shells that were fitted into a drilled out holder.
“The things that I loved were very frail. Very fragile. I didn't know that. I thought they were indestructible. They weren't.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Sunset Limited
The thing that always gets me about original Troth tied EHC flies is the head, or lack thereof. Most of the commercially tied EHC flies have a large flat head, Al would leave just a smidgen of the elk hair butts. Thanks Sandy for sharing those pictures that fly is timeless. I have landed a pile of native Cutthrouts on EHC this year and it never seems to fail.
Michael
Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it. T.R.
mrampant wrote:I like the tip of placing the hair in 22 shells, thanks for the photos.
Mark
Does that hold the exact amount needed? I always have too little or too much.
Even with a 22 shell you can have too much or too little. But it does make a convenient visual comparison each time, so gradually zeroing in on the right proportions is easier.
Al tied for a living. He guided too and made nifty deer stands and did photography etc. He was a creative guy. He also sold all his flies retail, which helps a lot. But still. He tied for himself and everybody else (Tom Morgan got nearly all his trout flies from Al, for instance).
So when Al tied pattern X he made that pattern all week long. When he was done with X he was done with X for the whole year. There is a photo out there on the net somewhere of Al tying MacSalmons, where he is sitting at his fold-out tying desk with a mountain of flies, piling from the floor up to the edges of his tying table. Standardizing steps is a requirement in that context.
As far as I know, Troth never sold rights for royalties to any of the overseas fly factories like so many of todays tiers. I can't imagine what the elk hair caddis would have garnered. It is fairly easy to come up with "new" patterns for the catalogues if someone else is doing the tying. He kept his patterns tight, materials easily obtained. He once told me he would tie a fly, timing each step, then go to work streamlining those steps that took "too long". The stop watch was always nearby. If he said a fly took 4 minutes to tie, you could bet it took 4 minutes to tie. hair was stacked and sorted. tailing material bundled, hackle sorted as to size ( remember his "hackle master" gauge). Wire, chenille, floss, all cut to size. We tied and used a lot of rubber legs back then. He would cut and mark the rubber leg material in a method that allowed him to tie in the legs and be done. No trimming of legs once they were tied in. Head cement was properly thinned and the cement bottle filled only enough to touch the needle. The tying background was usually light blue and line of sight uncluttered. This regiment allowed for clean, consistent work. He could, and did, sit for hours and crank out fly after fly after fly. The last one off the vise looking just like the first one. I believe he grew up in a machine shop. Precise, efficient practices must have been learned there. No different I suspect then any other commercial tiers of the time. dborjas
Well said, about Al. I went to several of his seminars too, as did several of us here in this forum. Al mentioned more than once the only way to "design and develop a new pattern" was to tie it for for three or four days--all day long.
Once Al was happy with a pattern he was perhaps less likely than others to change it. I find Al's seminars to be the single biggest influence on my tying. When I'm working on a new pattern I sometimes work on it for weeks, but I don't work all day long. So I have a different time frame. Al stressed the importance of durability too.
I'm a different person so I never stay pat with anything. I change everything, almost constantly. Sometimes I come full circle, pattern design/wise, to where I was a few years ago. But not often. I'm happiest when I'm trying something new.
snorider wrote:The thing that always gets me about original Troth tied EHC flies is the head, or lack thereof. Most of the commercially tied EHC flies have a large flat head, Al would leave just a smidgen of the elk hair butts.
Same here. Though I have to add this- I've used both versions a lot. And when active waking is required, as for searun Dolly Varden up here, the larger head and more "aggressive" wake work better. When it's more a case of dead drift as I've encountered on rivers in the Lower 48, Troth's version works better. So of course I keep both in my boxes!
I never met Al but I've certainly read many articles about him and his work. I greatly admire the small head on his EHC - makes it much easier to thread tippet through the eyelet!
Al's Elk Hair Caddis pattern is one of my favorite flies. I no longer tie my EHC's since my beloved wife "suggested" I stop. Or move my tying to the great outdoors. Though I enjoy tying with elk or deer hair, I DO end up with the blasted stuff migrating all over the house. Cathy does not enjoy this for some strange reason. She insists I buy all my "hair" flies now. Oh, well, it helps out the fly shops, right?
THE HORROR! well no wonder the fish turned up their noses at them .... Nice fishing with you, too bad I didn't bring the pack of #28 adams we would have slayed em Unfortunately I'm having a hard time finding em. Great outdoors will be pretty nice for the next few months( or weeks ), I might just set up in the back yard for the fall.
Michael
Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it. T.R.
I have always had trouble setting the wings on the EHC so I quit tying them. At a local TU tying gathering I asked on of the local legends to assist me. I came away with these pointers.
1. Less dubbing is better.
2. Use good elk hair. Nature's Spirit is the best
3. A clump of elk hair the size of a .22 is too small. A loose clump the size of a .357 is perfect for a size 16 fly. That will compress nicely when tied
properly.
4. Trim the front end of the wing in advance.
5. Make sure the wing is being attached to the dubbed body and not the bare hook.
6. Pinch the wing and hold it above the dubbed body when tying it in so it won't wrap around the hook.
7. Sheer thread is the best for this fly.
Last edited by PYochim on 12/11/20 20:52, edited 2 times in total.
Yup. Items 4,5 and 6 are drop dead critical if you want a decent fly.
A mountain is a fact -- a trout is a moment of beauty known only to men who seek them
Al McClane in his Introduction to The Practical Fly Fisherman . . . often erroneously attributed to Arnold Gingrich
Ah, an old post from Pittendrigh. I looked at date and hoped he had returned. Loved his posts and pictures. It's too bad he left and when he left it had nothing to do with him but anger over some threads that had turn political and got locked (I locked one of them) so he took his feathers and vise and left us. He came up with several innovative ideas in tying and his X-cross tie under some of his flies was ingenious but I could never get the hang of them. He was getting big catfish on the fly in some of the rivers and always liked how he'd say a fly was so easy and fast to tie his way "They'd fall off the vise".
+1
I miss Sandy's input. "The Right Hackle" was genius, but like you bassman I never did succeed in replicating it! His image stacking was simply amazing. It's a shame he left but? I hope he is enjoying his boat building and getting a few fish on the line.
Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it. T.R.
That second picture almost looks three dimensional, Sandy has a superb talent, great photographer. I still see his work in other forums. I also am sad to see Brown Bears' post. Left us too soon.
.dborjas
.... Nice fishing with you, too bad I didn't bring the pack of #28 adams we would have slayed em Unfortunately I'm having a hard time finding em. Great outdoors will be pretty nice for the next few months( or weeks 
), I might just set up in the back yard for the fall. 
