Bird's Carey

[UC Steve]

P1040050.JPG (248.7 KiB) Viewed 7912 times

Bird's Carey

Hook: #6 TMC 200R

Thread: Olive Uni

Rib: Olive hot wire - medium

Body: Mottled chestnut/brown wool yarn taken from a Oaxacan blanket (brown/olive heather is good)

Hackle: One brown & one 'green' pheasant rump hackle - the softer church-window feathers taken from just above the rump - one turn of each, trained back against the body - & finish with a full, tapered head

A riff on the old Carey Special, an indigenous pattern native to B.C., meant to simulate dragonfly nymphs. This version in a #10 covers the big Traveling Sedge of PNW lakes as well. The pattern travels well, & is a good lake fly everywhere I've used it.

[redsedge]

Cal Bird?

[UC Steve]

Wish I had his talent, but no relation. This one is a Steven Bird riff on the old pattern by Colonel Tom Carey.

[Old Hat]

Great color scheme Steve. Are you fishing this predominantly on Stillwater? I ask because it looks like it would be a nice leech or dragon/ damsel fly pattern. I know the Carey special well, great pattern that use quite a bit. It is because of the effectiveness of that pattern that I tie a lot of my Stillwater soft hackles with longer hackle.

[Roadkill]

Nice fly!

I first tied the Carey Special as a dragonfly nymph. I later learned after tying it for a caddis that it was actually created by Dr. Lloyd Day and Col. Carey about 1925 to represent caddis larva rising to hatch and was called the "Monkey Faced Louise". The original fly was tied with groundhog hairs for the tail & body, a black silk rib, and brown phase pheasant rump hackle. This simple style has been the soft hackle basis for most of my caddis emergers, tied in colors to match the bugs.

[Izaak]

I like your choice of the two hackles. Rather than just making two wraps with one hackle, the combination gives the fly more "depth" visually that could be interpreted as more lifelike, or at least more attractive to the fish. Nice looking fly!

Tom

[UC Steve]

The Carey Special was developed around 1925 by a retired British soldier, Colonel Tom Carey, who set up his tent at Arthur Lake in interior B.C. (kamloops country) in search of the perfect trout fly. Lakes of that region are rich with large dragonfly nymphs, primary food source of the big lake-dwelling kamloops redbands native there, & Carey originally tied it to simulate dragonfly nymphs. The original, tied with "groundhog" (probably Columbia ground squirrel) guard hairs wound around the hook, bound with black thread, & hackled with up to four rump feathers, was called the Monkeyfaced Louise, & may have been based on an earlier B.C. pattern called the Pazooka (local Indian slang meaning 'the medicine'). Later, Carey's friend, Dr. Loyd, nicknamed it "The Dredge". Carey meant the hackle to contribute to the body colors & nuance. Though I've read a dozen versions of Carey's story, only one (that I know of) mentions that he fished it for "dragonflies & caddis", & as Carey confined most of his fishing to the many lakes of the region which host the large lake-born Traveling Sedge, we can presume that is what he was fishing over. As I live only 70 miles as the crow flies from Arthur Lake, I've been able to fish the Carey in the waters it was designed to meet, & can attest that it does fish for Traveling Sedge, simulating the emerging pupae, but only during the season (late summer) that insect is emerging. #10 for Traveling Sedge. The version posted here, in #6, is a dragonfly nymph, & is my bread & butter lake fly, all season.

The foto is crappy & not showing the greens in the mix very well, sorry...

[JohnP]

Interesting information about a classic northwest pattern. I have had very good fishing with a version tied with a peacock herl body, and also with a red Carey, tied with SLF dubbing for the body.

[Old Hat]

I like "Monkey Faced Louise" better and would love to know that story.

[UC Steve]

I'd like to know the origin of the Monkeyfaced Louise moniker myself. Better still, would like to have been there at the inception, probably one drunk night, Carey & Dr. Loyd sharing a bottle of singlemalt out at the camp with a couple of the looser girls from Kamloops.

Yes, the peacock herl body version is a good one. Some old-timers tie that one with a tail of golden pheasant tippet. Good steelhead fly too. The Carey is as ambiguous as Colonel Carey's original mission, never having become one thing, but a 'pattern', the body material can be anything, the only common element, a collar of pheasant rump.