A necessary staple.

[Smuggler]

Thai you guys for such kind comments.

Ray, I love Collins hackle, the colors are true throughout the whole barb and they are nice and webby (the hens). Never tied with the dry fly capes but I hear they're great.

Doug, I usually have a Greenwells on my leader at some point throughout the day. .. and it's usually the fly that ends up solving the equation haha.

[tups]

Coming out of the shadows to say that I like the Greenwell as well as the next guy, and fished it with good success this spring on Honey Creek in Central Pennsylvania where I have a little place in the hills, probably not so far from Smuggler. This pattern was very effective during the American grannom hatch. Admittedly, my tying is not up to the standards regularly seen here, but I enjoy dressing them. My wings are bunched and split starling primary in the manner of Edmonds and Lee, and I use olive silk rather than waxed yellow.

[Smuggler]

Don't sell yourself short, those look like fish catcher's to me! I like the hackle.

[tups]

The hackle is furnace hen that I purchased from Great Feathers in Maryland. I believe Edmonds and Lee follow the original Greenwell's Glory pattern and use hen blackbird wings, which are now impossible to find. Starling makes a good substitute. The Robert Smith book is a treasure trove of north country patterns. I suppose it was Walbran who first used woodcock wings in place of the blackbird. In any case, I have caught a lot of trout in PA on this pattern.

[Smuggler]

Yes sir indeed. There's been many times when nothing was working and I'd switch my dropper or point to a Greenwells and immediately have a take on the swing. Amazing fly.

I used to scour starling inventories at fly shops until recently. I picked up a nice air rifle at work, now I can get a starling anytime I want. Even dun starling!

[tups]

I'm a born scavenger, so I like the air rifle approach. I'm also big on roadkill, and found a fresh coot last year near Coburn (Penn's Creek). When you say "dun starling" I suppose you mean the young birds just out of the nest.

[Smuggler]

The Coburn Coot! Nice find.

And yes the juveniles just taking flight. Awesome for bwo collars or wing slips for any dark winged mayfly. If you need to tie some Poult Bloas up the dun starling is a great substitute for the Grouse Poult covert that is traditionally used.

[Troutmaddave]

The hackle is furnace hen that I purchased from Great Feathers in Maryland. I believe Edmonds and Lee follow the original Greenwell's Glory pattern and use hen blackbird wings, which are now impossible to find. Starling makes a good substitute. The Robert Smith book is a treasure trove of north country patterns. I suppose it was Walbran who first used woodcock wings in place of the blackbird. In any case, I have caught a lot of trout in PA on this pattern.

Try the fishing megastore in Glasgow Scotland for black bird wings. They have a good selection of feathers and they post world wide. I use them all the time.

[letumgo]

Thanks for the tip Dave.

[Smuggler]

I recently ordered some hooks that were in a discussion in another thread.
http://flymphforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=6427&start=0

When Stefan posted the picture of that Maruto hook I knew I had to have some. I'll tell you what, these hooks are very very nice. First glance they look great, barbless, black finish, outward curve on the point like a grub/larvae hook, pretty stout. I think these will make for some pretty fine looking flies.

The company they come from is in Romania, I thought it was going to take weeks to get these but, surprisingly it took about.. 6 days, 11 bucks shipping. Not too bad. Plus their sales representative I spoke with was very informative about their products.

Thanks again Stefan for bringing these to our attention.