Our Sedge
Our Sedge
One of the countless patterns to imitate caddis or sedge flies. There are about
nine hundred varieties of the natural insect in Europe alone; world-wide almost
7000. Sizes vary from just a few millimetres to almost seven centimetres.
Sedges exist in flowing and in still waters. As nymphs and as the adult insect
they are a very important food source for our freshwater fish.
Since the sedge appears in many of our lakes, we should have at least one
pattern imitating it in our fly boxes.
When on a fishing holiday in Bavaria, back in 1976, a friend of mine, Helmut
Becker, and I found hundreds of sedges creeping along the surface of a
shop window. We had a close look and tried to copy them. What we produced
turned out to be a winner all over: caught grayling, brown-rainbow-sea trout,
chubb, roach, rudd and dace.
The perfect hook for the job is 2 x long in sizes 8 to 12, but the fly can be
tied smaller as well.
Materials ( dry fly ):
Thread - black
Body - very light brown or beige Polypropylene or artificial wool
Wing - a segment of any inside varnished dark brown feather, cut off with a
straight pair of scissors, just behind end of hook
Hackle - a ginger coloured cock hackle, tied in at the wing base to form a
thick upright standing hackle ring.
Materials ( wet fly ):
Thread - black
Body - real wool this time, has to be heavier than water, in very light brown
or beige
Ribbing - oval gold
Hackle - ginger coloured soft hen hackle, Palmer style, cut off fibres on
top
Wings - again a segment of the varnished dark brown feather, and cut off again
just behind the end of the hook.
Wherever you see sedges skating along the water's surface put it on.
Top Ten
Flies for Ireland
Hilariously funny, seriously, this is angling's answer to "Last Of The Summer
Wine"! .....Ray Robinson is a real life "Compo" who goes fishing with Dietrich
Bohnhorst.....I give it 10 out of 10.....a must have DVD for all the
family.
Roger Baker, Irish Angler Magazine
This DVD is a must for every fisherman who wants to learn the delicate art of
flytying.
The beautiful scenery enhances the pleasure of this film, as does the dry
humour of his eccentric English friend "the great Raymondo". Watch as they
tramp the landscape, dressed as if extras in Monty Python's Quest for the Holy
Grail, (which in a sense they are, in a fishy sort of way).
Great Entertainment for all the Family
114 minutes of fly-tying and fishing. Dietrich Bohnhorst's entertaining and practical guide for every game angler. On DVD for only EURO 20
or order by phone
Tel.: ++353-(0)74-97 36922
Our Sedge Emerges
The thought to produce my own flies, these fragile things from hooks, feathers,
wool and yarn, did not give me any peace until I had bought the essential tools
and materials; and a book on the subject of course: Fly tying and some tackle
making, by William Ernest Davies, written in the fifties, had only rough black
and white drawings, but helped to get a basic understanding of the matter.
Still the first objects didn't look promising at all, the proportions were
wrong and mostly they fell to pieces after ten casts or so. In mid seventies
Germany fly tying classes weren't available at every tackle shop, so I sat down
on my own, and after one winter of trial my flies got a certain similarity with
the original patterns, kept carefully in a little plastic box.
The summer holidays came finally and it was time to bring my creations to the
real test. To the River Alz in Bavaria first, as a sort of prelude to
Yugoslavia. The river, an outflow of the huge Chiemsee, had suffered a
fish-kill the previous year. But, we were assured, the grayling stocks had
recovered, the river was stocked and fishing well.
We found it not easy to catch a fish: sixty meters wide, at most places forests
right down to the banks and a river bottom consisting of fist size roundish
stones. Without chest waders it wasn't possible to get even a few steps into
the river. A strong currant, the depth of water and those slippery round stones
allowed only a very careful downstream wading. In fact we sort of hobbled over
the shingles, pushed forward by the currant. The braking down was always
initiated by a hefty slide and the attempt to stem the feet deeper into the
gravel, in order to slow down and come eventually to a standstill, one just had
to be very careful not to drift into deeper parts of the river.
Our catches were very moderate, often accidents; not the right flies, or wrong
presentation. A really slow moving affair.
So, a fellow angler's wife didn't need long to talk us into driving to the town
of Seebruck; there was one of these open air feasts happening. Bavarian
bacchanalian: brass bands, pork roasts and Kraut and sausages and of course big
glasses and lots of people.
Coming home from this in the evening, we found on an illuminated shop window
hundreds of sedges crawling all over the pane. A close look at them revealed
that all had very light brown, beige, bodies and not like our imitations dark
ones.
In the morning we got our tying gear out of the car and tried to imitate these
insects. In the afternoon we started the first trials with Our Sedge and found
that we had landed a hit. In the evening we sat on the terrace of our
guesthouse and tied more: for Yugoslavia.
Sure enough, our pattern proved to be the hammer, we fished almost exclusively
with it, in sizes 10 to 18, all day long, morning, noon and evening, wherever
fish rose, they took this sedge.
It is still my best loved dry fly; I caught my, so far, biggest grayling on it,
numerous trout, Chubb, dace, rudd, roach and sea trout.
DEDICATION
In 1995 Dietrich Bohnhorst and Ray Robinson produced DEDICATION, a four part
movie, following two dedicated fly-fishers through various entertaining and
exciting expeditions on land and sea in the North-West of Ireland.
After DEDICATION was shown on European TV via French Station AB-Sat and in
North America via a cable network it became somewhat of an angler's cult
film.
All 107 minutes of DEDICATION are available for only €20 on DVD;
To order
click here
or order by phone
Tel.: ++353-(0)74-97 36922
DEDICATION is not a how to or where to go program. It's a slice of life.
