fit as a butcher’s wet fly

Sorting through my fly boxes it became apparent there is a distinct lack of winged wet flies included within them today. This is likely because I tend to fish mostly palmered and spider (or soft hackle) wet flies in the lochs, so for next season, it would be nice to have some old style winged wet fly patterns to fish.

Thinking back to when I was youngster, there was one pattern that the older kids who had managed to learn that seemingly mystical power of being able to cast a fly with a fly rod, spoke of in revered tones; the Butcher wet fly and its cousins.

The fly itself is accredited to two Tunbridge Wells anglers named Moon and Jewhurst and in 1838, the fly is believed to have been renamed from the original name it was given of ‘Moon’s Fly’, to the name ‘Butcher’ that we know it by today. The creator was understood to have been a butcher which would explain the naming of the fly and I have heard it said that the colours are representative of their trade; blue and red from the colour of the apron and silver for the knives that they used.

Creating winged wet flies will be a challenge as I can’t remember the last time I actually tied a winged wet fly, so a master class in winging wet flies, these following posts will not be! Still, I contented myself in thinking that these are going to be fishing flies and not the works of art for display created by those talented individuals whose fly tying skills are much more better than mine. Hopefully the fish won’t mind too much either and the wings will help, rather than hinder the flies to keep an even keel under the water.

The Butcher then, consists of some red fibres for the tail; here I used some soft red cockerel fibres as I like a slimmer tail with some movement in it. The body is silver tinsel with a fine silver rib. The hackle, a soft natural black hen was tied in and the wing, some blue mallard slips was added. The feathers for the wing slips were picked up during a walk a couple of years back and the local pond has plenty of ducks on it; its a nice way to collect some free fly tying materials.

While at the vice, it made sense to continue the theme and tie one of the other Butchers from the series, this time the Bloody Butcher. All the materials are the same except for the hackle which should be red hen, but instead, I opted for a grizzle hackle dyed red which makes for an interesting variation.

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