Catchy Titles

 An old one I wrote for www.sexyloops.com

I'm terrible at naming flies. Or at least, terrible at it most of the time, when I actually come up with a fly that's reasonably original I can come up with something. It's probably because, I don't really think most patterns warrant a new name.

We're probably stuck with the old style naming where there essentially only a few different flies, but loads of names for what are essentially just colour different colour combinations. I mean, look at the Kate Mclaren for example, is it really anything other than a black & brown bumble? No it isn't. And that's by no means unusual. Almost everyone calls hedgehogs sedgehogs now,  because Stan Headley renamed it after putting a hackle on it.  I think the hackled version didn't need a new name, even if sedgehog is probably better branding. 

The thing about names though, they have some kind of power. I've noticed this several times recently. Folk raving about the black mamba, and some guy going on about how he "developed" it. Which amused me as its  almost exactly identical to a fly I tied circa 1995- I used a litebrite body whereas the black mamba uses glister - and I didn't invent it either. That's fine,it's just a bit of self promotion and no one's getting hurt. But I doubt it'd be so popular if it was just called a black & green zonker.

This week I made a tutorial for a leggy golden olive bumble(POD) . It's a lovely palmer with a golden pheasant breast feather at the shoulder, giving it that straggly look that's so characteristic of Hebridean top droppers. It didn't take long before some expert told me it was a crippler, again a better name than leggy golden olive bumble. But as far as I can tell, cripplers are just octopuses (octopi?). Not that it mattered as the leggy bumbles have been around longer than I have, certainly a good decade or two longer than cripplers and offer quite a different profile to a crippler. Which anyone with half a clue would realise. They also need to be tied differently to keep things propotional.  The descriptive name just doesn't roll off the tongue as well.

Then I saw a young kid being eviscerated online after he posted a picture of a gurgler mouse, because he didn't call it a master splinter. No one stopped to consider the negative impact they were having on a 14 year old getting into the sport, or that the guy from, Field & Stream just put a name on an existing pattern.Which is exactly what he did, hundreds of people invented the gurgler mouse before him, just no one bothered naming it. I have seen people claim it's a different or special pattern and that there's more going on in that fly, including some who should know better, but it's not. It's a gurgler mouse; a pattern that's probably as old as the guy who renamed it.

It's just a reality of fly fishing I suppose, and it is mostly harmless with just a few folk being taken for mugs in order to sell a few flies that will catch fish. There is some ugliness there though and that is unfortunate. I hope that young guy keeps fishing, keeps tying gurgler mice and keeps catching fish on them.

Leggy Golden Olive Bumble

Hook: B175 or equivalent wetfly hook size 8-12

Thread: Brown 8/0

Tag: gold tinsel 

Tail: GP crest 

Body:Golden olive seal fur or sub

Rib: oval gold

Body hackles: Chinese cock golden olive & dark ginger 

Shoulder hackle: GP red breast feather 

Head hackle: Blue jay

 
Gurgler mouse 

Hook: B10S or similar 

Thread: anything stout and in the right colour 

Tail: rabbit or squirrel strip with the fur trimmed 

Body: rabbit or squirrel strip -crosscut if you like 

Back/lip: Foam