I used to have a few direct customers for a few dozen flies per year, and occasionally someone would give me a tattered fly and ask for some to be made. I’ve unwound a few flies, more often to see the tier’s methods than to identify the materials.

Years ago a salmon fisher gave me a terrible looking bird-like waking fly. He wanted copies to bring to Russia to fish in rivers I’d never heard of. It was a monstrosity, made of deer hair and moose mane on a large bent hook. I failed with my copies until I took the original apart to see how the tier had reinforced the big bird wings. Later the salmon fisher reported that my flies brought vicious strikes when pulled across Russian currents, while upstream and downstream other fishers caught nothing on their standard patterns.

You mention the Greenwell’s Glory and Coch-y-Bondhu, and if I could get a few proper wet necks for those I would be a happy man. I’m substituting golden furnace on a few patterns, and even those good furnace necks are hard to find.

We moved last summer and now we have room for chickens. I’m thinking Rhode Island Red hens for my wet Coachman patterns, and some kind of roosters that will give me the Greenwell necks. Nice to dream, anyway.