Gorgeous George

The change of seasons and the prospect of some warmer weather brings about a change of fly box, or at least a good sorting thereof. This seasonal deliberation is a ritual that cannot be overlooked — what worked last year, what didn’t, and is there space for something new?

There’s always a tempting pattern or two in the various social or written media. One getting some space in my own box has come to light through Jeff Cassidy (Jeff’s Black Spinner, FL#85), who spends a lot of time on the water waving cane rods around and chasing trout in the highlands.

The Gorgeous George pattern was originally designed by Irish tier Paul Cantillon. Part Bumble, part Hopper, it is a classic bushy wet fly often fished as the top dropper in a team of three for traditional loch-style fishing.

Jeff ties the Gorgeous George as a grasshopper imitation — an Australian dry fly ‘hopper’ as opposed to an English loch-style Hopper. It combines some great triggers, with a bright hotspot of colour to catch the eye, and movement from the legs. The generous hackle provides good floatation, and enough substance to produce an inviting ‘splat’ on arrival.

A highly visible fly, it is great for searching the water. Try floating it down the seam just on the edge of the fast water, or overpowering your cast in quieter water or under high banks to get the fly to land heavily. The fish key in to the ‘splat’ and can move quite a way to snatch a hopper from the surface. If nothing happens after 30 seconds or so, pick your fly up and land it a metre or two to the side, or further upstream. In this way you can cover the larger, slower pools.

Start the Gorgeous George by wrapping a base of thread down the hook shank and part way around the bend. Then wrap back up to the rear of the shank, and give this exposed rear section a quick coat of varnish or epoxy. You can tie up a couple of pheasant tail legs while you wait for the varnish to dry.

Tie in a short tail of Glo-Brite, extending out to level with the rear of the hook. Then secure a length of gold wire for the rib, and yellow thread, or floss, for the body. Neatly wrap the orange tying thread three quarters of the way back up the hook shank and then cover with several layers of yellow thread, forming a neat tapered body. Tie off your yellow thread and trim.

Select a hackle with barbs a little longer than the hook gape and tie this in at the front of the body. Wrap the hackle in open turns back over the body to the rear. Then, while holding the hackle tight, wind the wire rib forward in matching open turns over the hackle to tie it down. This technique is used in many body-hackled patterns such a Stimulators and Woolly Buggers. Secure the wire rib and trim any excess, along with the excess hackle at the rear.

To form the legs, select four or five pheasant tail barbs and tie them together with a single overhand knot, a third of the way down from the tips. This is best done before removing them from the feather shaft as it keeps them nice and even. If you prefer, you can knot up all the legs you will need for your tying session and then just snip them off as you go.

Tie in a leg either side of the body, with the knot out past the rear of the hook. While producing quite a long leg, it accentuates this prominent feature of hoppers — a potential trigger point to get a take from the trout.

With the legs in place, tie in another hackle. Using a similar size to the body hackle will give a more even look, or choose a larger size if you prefer a fuller hackled look to your fly. Move your thread forward leaving a millimetre or two behind the eye, then wrap the hackle forward in touching turns and secure.

Form a large head with the thread to provide the hotspot of colour, before a final whip finish and drop of head cement to secure. If you’re a fan of the original classic look, add in a small jungle cock eye on either side before forming the head. This is perhaps mandatory when fishing with cane.

Colours can be changed to suit your own preferences — for Red Tag enthusiasts, the ‘Dennis the Menace George’ variation is worth a look, being all black with a red tag. It stands out nicely in low light as well.

While not a ‘new’ pattern in the true sense of the word, these rediscovered older flies never lose their effectiveness, they are just overrun by the profusion of newer creations. While originally designed for lochs as a daddy-long-legs (cranefly) pattern, it translates well to a dry grasshopper for the streams.

It is also a step away from the usual foam grasshopper patterns. While foam floats well and doesn’t crush when jamming too many into your fly box, it is the only thing guaranteed to get you hate mail. Apple vs Android, AFL vs NRL, Hatfields vs McCoys all pale into insignificance when it comes to foam vs feather.

I wonder if Jonathan Swift was thinking of fly fishing when he coined ‘Everything old is new again’.