BIRD FUR WILD THING - REVISITED - AN OMEN?

THE FLY
I'm not too sure of the year, but back in the early 2000's, 2002 I think, Wayne Hinton introduced the Roger Sinclair (The Silver Fox) 'Wild Thing' fly to us.   Cathie had a thing for the pink things because she had caught her first metery on one, but I couldn't catch a fish on them and I don't think I have yet.  Wayne showed us the 'Wild' thing which was similar to the other but had a green/chartreuse tail instead of the white/grizzly like the 'pink'thing.   I had a lot more success on them, bearing in mind though, I wasn't a really successful fly fisher anyway.

Later, around 2006 or maybe a bit later, the Whiting Farms bird fur arrived on the market.  Each bird Fur patch was one-half of a full, large Spey Rooster saddle, with long wispy fur-like feathers up to 6"long.    (Sadly the original Rooster is harder to get now because of the demand for feathers, I'm told, but the shorter Spey Hen saddle is available as Mini Bird Fur.)

Bird Fur

Some of  us tried this feather fur out and originally didn't like it much because it was too whispy we thought.  But after just putting a clump of one colour on as the tail and then a clump of a different colour as the head of the fly, instead of palmering a feather, we found it was a pretty good fly and even though it was very anaemic looking after it got wet, once in the water it seemed to pulse.   Got us in anyway.

We tied up a Bird Fur 'Wild Thing' and went out with Piero Bertocchi (Tocs) who was stationed up here at the time, to have a first trial of this new ( to us anyway) material.   It was a great success and that trip ended up as a small article in Flylife magazine. Click Bird Fur for the link to the article if it's too hard to read in the picture below

The fly was called monstrous by a  critic on the east coast but the fish liked it....and it has caught a heap of fish since.

 THE OMEN
Well, it's strange how things happen, yesterday I started tying some more 'wild' things but with the smaller mini Bird Fur....I haven't tied them for a while, probably a year or more because I have been trying out these see through 'No See Um' flies as the Stig calls them.   But I started on them yesterday and thought that I should contact Tocs to see if he could use them in NZ.   (Tocs moved to Canberra and then NZ over the past few years, he has three articles in Flylife, one for the Saltwater up here and two for trout fishing in NZ).

Anyway, I ramble on a usual, and had this in the vice when Graeme the Grey Williams came over for a coffee.

In the vice, not quiet finished, the smaller mini bird fur.

We were sitting outside and Graeme mentioned that he had found one of my old 'Fish a cast' flies, (referring to the fish a cast with the wild thing in the Flylife article) and he said that the fly caught twenty barra on a recent fishing trip.  So I have to make a heap more now.  But that was only part of the 'Omen'?,  because last night got a message from Tocs that he hopes that he is on his way back to Darwin in 2017. .   His previous time up here saw the La Nina and some of the wettest years on record. ..................and the La Nina is returning.....coincidence????or an omen???.    Who knows but bring on the fishing.