Rob Smith, professional flydresser and the author of the critically acclaimed book The North Country Fly: Yorkshire’s Soft Hackle Tradition
Rob Smith, professional flydresser and the author of The North Country Fly: Yorkshire’s Soft Hackle Tradition
The upstream presentation of traditional soft hackled wet flies on rivers is a subject close to my heart. It is a presentation method I favour, even though it is not a productive searching technique for trout and requires more effort […]
Pearsall’s Gossamer Silk It is safe to say that for the past century a certain brand of silk thread has become synonymous with the tying of traditional north country spiders. I am of course referring to Pearsall’s Gossamer which after […]
In his 1924 publication Fly Fishing in Northern Streams, Lieut-Col William Keith Rollo made no bones about being a “Wet Fly” fisherman in an age of “dry Fly” supremacy. And in this now largely forgotten slim volume, he reprints some […]
Choosing North Country Spider Hackles It goes without saying that to dress the finest of flies, you need the finest of materials. And now thankfully, with the growth of online retailing. An expanded choice of flydressing materials is for many […]
Horsehair Casts & North Country Spiders A number of years ago I set out to dress a selection of traditional North Country spider patterns in the most authentic manner possible. With a degree of enthusiasm that bordered on insanity, I […]
Providence often takes a hand in the world of collecting vintage fishing tackle and flydressing materials. More often that not, valuable collections are split up, and dispersed around the four corners of the globe, without ever coming to form the […]
Arthur Ransome remarked that “Anglers, make fine old men”, and George Morrell, angler and schoolmaster comfortably fits into Ransome’s characterisation of a “fine old man”. A native of Darlington, and a leading light in the Congregational Church. George Morrell first […]
Herbert Palmer and The Roving Angler I have a secret passion for angling books. Not the well-known classics of the chalk streams, or even the collectable masterpieces of the North Country. But moreover, angling literature of the interbellum period of […]
