Yorkshire Spider (John Shaner's Collection)

[Old Hat]

Muskrat and Water vole look very similar aside from color in these photos. No real discernible difference. The mole is noticeably shorter.

[Mataura mayfly]

Personally, I find it easier to sub water Rat for the blue/gun metal underfur of the common brown European Rabbit.
Failing that, normal old everyday carriers of the Plague flea back in the day Rat will have an underfur that will yield much the same results.... if you can bring yourself to using it.

[raven4ns]

You guys are very advanced in tying SH flies, for those of us who are not, it would be nice if the picture and the recipe could be saved in the reference link as some patterns already are. Thank you.

[letumgo]

Since there was mention of Coot wing feathers in one of the earlier posts, I wanted to take this opportunity to share a photo I took of a pair of Coot wings (see below). The coloration of the feathers is similar on both sides of a coot wing (slightly ligher shade of dun on the underside of the wing). This is not true of other common game birds.




Tim - You may find the following links helpful, regarding the patterns.

ONLINE VERSION OF THE PRITT BOOK:
https://archive.org/stream/yorkshiretro ... 9/mode/2up <--- This link takes you to the recipe (Page 27/Pattern No. 18).
https://archive.org/stream/yorkshiretro ... 1/mode/2up <--- This link shows a painting of the fly.

https://openlibrary.org/books/OL7180816 ... rout_flies <--- You can download a copy of the book, from this link.

[Greenwell]

I have been fortunate to have dressed flies with Water Rat and my observation is that it is spikier and glassier than mole. Remember, a mole has no guard hairs, his fur is omni-directional. Otherwise he would have trouble backing up in his tunnel. WR on the other hand has guard hairs that are removed prior to spinning the body.
Muskrat is longer in staple and softer. The color is good if a bit brighter in most cases, but Muskrat can exhibit a wide range of shades. I have some that is almost silver at the tips and pale gray at the base.

An excellent sub for WR (and one I'm surprised the stalwarts on this Forum missed!) is Pine Squirrel. Beautiful stuff and an oft overlooked dubbing.

[letumgo]

Great tip, John. Am I right to assume that all guard hairs would be removed when substituting pine squirrel?

[narcodog]

John you are correct as usual about the under fur of pine squirrel. I use a LW fur rake to extract the under fur for dubbing. When I just need the guard hair I save the UF.

[gingerdun]

Thanks everyone for this interesting information about water rats v. muskrat dubbing.
I've got to go back to my dad's dubbing box and see if he had any water vole.

Lance

[Smuggler]

This thread has certainly been a wealth of great information. I love it.

[hankaye]

Howdy All;

An excellent sub for WR (and one I'm surprised the stalwarts on this Forum missed!) is Pine Squirrel. Beautiful stuff and an oft overlooked dubbing.

And I used to think they were only good for eating ...

hank