Carl Sanders Interview

I want to thank Carl for taking the time to answer the questions for this interview. Carl has been an active member of the Fymph community for years and is an amazing fly tyer. He has started a flymph group on Facebook named Flymph Angling and Tying Group. Be sure to visit the group on Facebook if you wish to join. He also has his own website featuring flymphs that you can find at this link:

https://www.oldhatflytying.com/

Enjoy the interview!

Flymph for the grey fox hatches.

 

1. Did you have any mentors when you were learning how to tie and fish flymphs?

My wife is my mentor. We met in the early nineties while attending Oregon State University. She had already been a fly fisher since childhood and bought me a fly tying kit for our first Christmas together. I took to it right away. She has never had the patience to tie. Her father was no longer restocking her flies so she just wanted a new source. At least that is what I tell her. I consider her my mentor because she introduced me to the sport of fly fishing and has, still to this day, fished alongside me supported every quirky little side path it has taken me on. 

2. I'm sure you have answered this question a lot, but for those who don't know, what is a flymph and what characteristics makes a fly a flymph?

Hidy gives the reader his definition of a flymph in The Art of Tying the Wet Fly and Fishing the Flymph. It is pretty straight forward and clear. Staunch traditionalists will stick tight to this description, however, I’m not entirely sure this is what Hidy intended. I say this because the definition he wrote in the book also includes how a flymph is to be fished, but I know there were many different presentations employed by Hidy himself which he mentions later on in the following chapters and other published material. With that being said, there are certainly characteristics of a flymph pattern that set it apart from other wet flies. It is a wingless wet fly meant to mimic an actively emerging insect struggling to reach the surface or drifting in or just under the surface in the active emerging dun stage. A properly constructed flymph has no equal for this purpose. The flymph body is constructed of dubbing twisted between two strands of thread. This is purposeful and a signature of the flymph. The dubbing and the thread work in harmony, blending together colors to match natural insects. This also provides an extremely durable body with a depth and translucence in which the fibers will dance in active movement in conjunction with the soft hackle under the water’s surface. This is often misunderstood when it comes to dubbing soft hackled flies. Twisting the thread and dubbing together blends the colors, touch dubbing covers the thread, and no matter how sparse, the effect is quite different. The bodies of flymphs are comparatively quite robust, more so than lightly dubbed spider patterns or some other soft hackled patterns where the the dubbing is sparsely applied to the thread. An overall cigar-shaped taper is most desirable. One other characteristic the flymph tyer should consider is what the design mimics. As I said, it represents any number of actively emerging insects making their way to the surface. Any additions to the pattern that lead the fly fisher away from this type of presentation naturally removes the pattern from the definition of a flymph. For example, adding a bead to the pattern would negate it from being a flymph because a bead’s purpose is the the exact opposite of what the flymph fisher is trying to accomplish when fishing a flymph. 

Hidy Iron Blue Dun

 

3. What is it about flymphs that you love?

I absolutely love the versatility and durability flymph patterns offer the fly fisher on the stream. I have been known to fish the same pattern all day, through many different hatches and many different types of water. They are not specific hatch matchers. They are generalist patterns for the most part which lends to their productivity. Present them correctly in a natural manner and allow the fish to see what they want to see. The more detailed and imitative a pattern becomes the less versatile it is.

4. What vise or vises do you like to use?

I personally tie on a Norvise and Regal. Although, I have a good collection of Thompson vises that I pull out and tie on quite often. 

5. What are your favorite tools to use? Scissors, bobbin, hackle pliers, etc? 

Fine point scissors for sure. Ceramic bobbin holders because I work a lot with silk threads. I use hackle pliers for tending the short game bird hackles and small hen hackles. My favorite tool is a dubbing rake. Not only is it great for removing fur dubbing from the hide, I use it like a third hand for controlling body wraps, roughing up the body of the fly and combing to blend the hackle and dubbing together. 

 

6. I noticed your wonderful setup you had at the Sowbug Roundup this year. Can you tell us more about your carrying case and the base that holds your vise? Is there anything else about your setup that you would like to mention?

The portable tying chest I’ve been using is built by Tim Tibbals from Twisted Feather. It’s an ingeniously crafted design inspired by vintage sewing boxes. My grandmother had one of those sewing boxes. The chest has a large compartment in the bottom for hackle then the two ends expand out to supply 4 holding compartments. In the center is a box that attaches and unattaches housing the vise and tools, among other things. Top quality craftmanship all around. The base design holds a vise stem for either right or left handed tiers with stem slots that can be tightened down. My version has a small sill that slips into the vise stem holes which allows me to attach a Norvise system.

7. What flymph patterns have you originated yourself?

I have a few basic flymph patterns that I have created.  They are fairly nondescript patterns.  That’s how I like to roll.  The core of my design employs light, medium and dark hare duns.  These 3 patterns can cover most hatches for me in different sizes.  I add a tail for the mayflies and no tail for the caddis.  A couple other favorites are my Muskrat Silver and Muskrat Gold.  Good patterns with a little bling when I feel conditions call for it.  For a pattern on the attractor side, I go with my Fade series of flymphs which all make use of a color which “fades” into a darker thorax then ribbed with pearl tinsel or Krystal flash.  There are certainly plenty of others but these are my foundation patterns and can be seen on my website.

Dark Hare Pupa

8. What are some of your favorite flymphs?

Easy.  I have two favorite patterns.  They are Hidy’s March Brown and Leisenring’s Old Blue Dun.

9. Do you have any favorite materials you like to use when tying flymphs? Any particular soft hackle, dubbing , or thread/silk?

I prefer to mix my own natural dubbings.  Hare, muskrat, mole form the basis of most of my dubbing mixes.  I harvest six different shades of fur from cream to dark brown from a hare’s mask. I adjust the colors and shades by adding very small amounts of dyed kid mohair or alpaca, sometimes seal.  I use most of the common game birds for hackle as well as hen cape feathers.  A special treat is a bunch of Partridge dyed blue dun that I have.  I use this most often for my Fade patterns which were inspired by Syl Nemes’ red and black dun.  The pattern called for the blue dun dyed partridge and led me on a quest to procure some.  Silk thread is often associated with flymph construction.  I don’t believe it is necessary for tying a productive flymph.  It does however have some properties that make tying a pleasure and is helpful in constructing premade dubbing ropes on the Clark’s Dubbing Block.  I have become a big Kimono silk fan for tying since the demise of Pearsall’s.  The brand has great color matches to Pearsall’s, is thinner and very strong.

Fade

 

10. When tying flymphs, I know hooks are discussed a lot. What hooks do you recommend for tying flymphs? Any particular models?

I see hooks as tools that aid in the presentation of my flies.  I use them as such.  Longer heavier hooks to get the fly deeper, shorter dry fly hooks if I’m presenting the pattern in or near the surface.  Hook choice is also determined by what insect I’m mimicking.  Stonefly patterns call for longer hooks than little short bodied BWO’s to properly construct the right profile.  I feel most hooks today are quality.  Flymphs are often associated with up eye hooks.  The long-bodied up-eye hook became Hidy’s preference as his tying progressed.  So you see a lot of classic flymph patterns tied on hooks with up eyes.  A turle knot is necessary as the leader to fly connection when using up eye hooks. If I am in a classic tying mood, or for photography purposes, I will often tie on an up eye hook.  Most of the patterns in my fly box are on down eye hooks.  However, over the the last few years the straight eye hook has grown on me. The bulk of my personal tying is on Tiemco 3761 and 3769.  For lighter flies I like the Tiemco 100 and the straight eye Tiemco 101. The Mustad R50 is a great hook for lighter flies and also comes in an up eye version, the Mustad R50U. 

11. What is the best way to fish a flymph? 

The best way to fish a flymph is the way the trout want it.  I know that sounds a little dodging, but being able and willing to experiment and learn to make the fly present in a natural way is the key.   It goes back to the versatility aspect.  Present it to the fish in a natural manner, matching the current insect behavior and let it do its thing.  These are simple flies, much of the effectiveness is in the presentation and being able to convince the fish what they are seeing is real.  The versatility in presentation, due to the flymph design, lends presentations in the upper part of the water column nearly limitless.  That is the flymph’s special power. 

Leisenring Pale Watery Dun Wingless

12. What resources would you recommend for people wanting more information on flymphs?

Flymphs have been around since Pete Hidy coined the term yet there are very few resources for information.  There are a splattering of short articles here or there in a few publications.  Of course there is the original book The Art of Tying the Wet Fly and Fishing the Flymph, by Leisenring and Hidy.  It can be hard to find at an affordable price. Dave Hughes’ book Wet Flies is probably the most current accurate publication with a section on flymphs.  Dave Hughes is one of the few well known authors still around to have talked flymphs with Pete Hidy prior to his death.  His book is a great place to start. There is an online forum, The Flymph Forum, which has been around for many years with a large amount of information.  I administer a small international Facebook group called “The Flymph Angling and Tying Group”.   In this day and age of instant information on everything, flymphs are still somewhat mysterious.  It is part of the intrigue surrounding flymphs.  Someone has to do some digging to find all the little gems that are out there.  Dig enough and you will be rewarded.  You might even find yourself an official member of the International Brotherhood of the Flymph.

Pete Hidy & The Flymph Presentation

This special program will be presented by Lance Hidy, son of Pete, at the Catskill Fly Fishing Center & Museum, Saturday, May 18th, 2024. Read on for more details. Lance posted this on Facebook.

"It starts in the morning, around 10:30, and we plan to end at 2:30 so there is time to go fishing.

"There will be a lot about the connection between Pete Hidy, Reuben Cross, and Jim Leisenring.

"It is little-known that Rube Cross, legendary dry-fly master, liked the wet fly work that Hidy and Leisenring were doing enough to introduce Pete to his editor at Dodd, Mead, and set the wheels in motion for the publication of THE ART OF TYING THE WET FLY. He even wrote the introduction to it. Were it not for Cross, the Leisenring book would never have been published.
 

"Reuben Cross was a revered figure in my house while I was growing up. Cross's books were lined up on the shelf over Pete Hidy's tying bench.

"My talk will also cover Pete Hidy's fishing career, and the story of how he coined the word flymph, and worked hard to promote the idea through journal articles and books.

"I hear that Creekside Cabins may have one unit still available, and there are motel rooms and Airbnbs available in Roscoe and Livingston Manor.
 

"Here's the program schedule."
 

Pete Hidy and the Flymph
Saturday, May 18,
Catskill Fly Fishing Center & Museum
Livingston Manor, NY

If you plan to attend please RSVP on the Catskill Fly Fishing Museum website.

• 10:30 AM–12:00 PM—Flymph Tying Roundtable
• 11:30 AM—John Shaner: “Vince Marinaro Spider Flies”
• 1:00–1:15 PM—Author Richard Lodge, about his soon-to-be-published Reuben Cross biography
• 1:15–2:00 PM—Lance Hidy: ”Pete Hidy’s Friendships with Jim Leisenring and Reuben Cross.”
• 2:00–2:30 PM—Panel Discussion

Mark Libertone and a couple Flymphs

Mark Libertone was a well known figure in the world of soft hackles and flymphs. I will be posting some of Mark's fly patterns occasionally. With this first post, I want to give a little bit of history about Mark and post a couple of olive colored flymphs that I've always found very attractive.

Mark Liberton was born and raised in New York State. His interest in trout fishing led naturally to an interest in fly fishing and fly tying. He began part of his fishing education at age 14. He worked as a freelance graphic artist and illustrator with some of his artwork appearing in Fly Fisherman Magazine and other publications.

He mentioned that even though he tied dry flies and fished them, he was very partial to the soft-hackle wet flies and flymphs. He said he found their versatility and simple construction very appealing.

He lived near the Genesee River and fished it every chance he got. He held the secretary position for his local Trout Unlimited chapter. He taught fly fishing and fly tying and wrote articles about his beloved hobby as well. Mark was a proud member of The International Brotherhood of the Flymph.

He is of course well known to all of us who have been interested in soft hackles and flymphs. He was one of the founding members of the Flymph Forum where many of us have posted about our passion for wet flies.

Olive Ascension Caddis

Hook: Mustad-Limerick 31217 T.U.E #15
Thread: 8/0 Olive Uni-thread
Hackle: Silver Speckled Coq de leon hen
Ribbing: Fine Pearlescent mylar tinsel
Body: Olive Hare's mask, dubbed Leisenring fashion on 8/0 olive Uni-thread-roughed with dubbing needle after wrapping rib.

 

Double Olive Flymph

Hook: Mustad 3399A
Thread: Pale olive Gossamer
Hackle: Medium creamy dun hen
Body: Dark Olive Hare's Mask dubbed Leisenring style on the pale olive Gossamer. Leave a little thread showing at the tail end.

McClain's Flymph

I tied this flymph with an old Michigan dry fly in mind, called McClain’s Drake. Way back in the 1940s Jerry McClain had accidentally left an old WW2 Army sweater on the clothesline and it became sun bleached. This discolored the original material. Jerry used this as the body of his fly. I had the chance to talk to him years ago and he said it didn’t matter if the fly sank or not, it would continue to catch fish. He would fish it until it was falling apart. So I figured this would make a great flymph, since it can be fished right beneath the surface. So here is my take on a McClain’s Drake version of a flymph.  --Paul

Materials:
Gaelic Supreme Jack Mickievicz Letort Dry Fly Hook size 12
Body is a mixed of wool yarn of olive, burgundy, and brown to mimic the sweater. Spun on a Clark Block in Danville 3/0 Monocord brown.
Tail is Pheasant
Hackle is Hen Pheasant

Kimono Silk at Magpie Materials

Stephen Hankins of Magpie Materials is now carrying Kimono Silk on regular size spools. This is fantastic, especially since we can no longer buy Pearsall's Gossamer silk. Kimono is the closest in color I know of to Pearsall's as well. In the past it was available, but only came on very large spools. So this is a game changer!

Here is what Stephen posted when the announcement was made.

"For everyone who expressed interest, Kimono Silk Thread is now LIVE and ready to roll on MagpieMaterials.com. Check it out and start tying with what many fly tyers find to be the finest silk gossamer thread available. Magpie has improved the product for fly tyers by offering on a fly tying specific spool. No need to waste your time and energy spooling it yourself, buying a special bobbin, or tying without a bobbin; Magpie has done the work for you! 130 yards of premium gossamer Silk for $4.75 per spool. Currently spooling 20 colors, many of which match Pearsall’s. We’ll be adding many more colors soon."

 

Green Drake Flymph

 Steven Bird, wrote in the Soft~Hackle Journal about one of the largest mayflies in his part of the country and that is the Green Drake. Steven ties a wonderful Green Drake Flymph that I wanted to make sure to highlight here. You can find it below along with the materials list. Since I live in the Midwest, I never get to experience this mayfly, so I grabbed an excerpt from Steven writing about it in the Journal.

"Green Drake is the first big mayfly of the year to show. They are sporadic, initially. Maybe we’ll spot one drifting like a battle cruiser among the bum-boats of small Grannom riding the flow. Or perhaps we catch sight of one paddling through the air like a B-52 among the kamikaze sedges.

"The first Green Drake of the season we see is always an exciting event because we know when there’s one, there’s more to follow. Once the tap is open, trout know it. The fish were probably onto them even before we saw that one.  We think: Oh Boy. It’s on!"

Materials list:
Hook: size 8
Thread: olive UNI 8/0
Hackle: golden olive grizzly
Tail: gadwall whisks dyed with yellow marker
Rib: yellow floss, doubled & twisted
Body: dark olive hares mask with a bit of Hareline Shrimp Pink Dub mixed in, thorax is dubbed on the floss rib, a bit of light olive dubbing behind the hackle collar

What is a Flymph?

What makes a flymph can be confusing. The best explanation I have read was from an interview I did with Carl Sanders. I will be posting this interview in the near future. But I thought it was important to go ahead and post what characteristics make a Flymph. Here is what Carl wrote in his answer.

"Hidy gives the reader his definition of a flymph in The Art of Tying the Wet Fly and Fishing the Flymph. It is pretty straight forward and clear. Staunch traditionalists will stick tight to this description, however, I’m not entirely sure this is what Hidy intended. I say this because the definition he wrote in the book also includes how a flymph is to be fished, but I know there were many different presentations employed by Hidy himself which he mentions later on in the following chapters and other published material. With that being said, there are certainly characteristics of a flymph pattern that set it apart from other wet flies. It is a wingless wet fly meant to mimic an actively emerging insect struggling to reach the surface or drifting in or just under the surface in the active emerging dun stage. A properly constructed flymph has no equal for this purpose. The flymph body is constructed of dubbing twisted between two strands of thread. This is purposeful and a signature of the flymph. The dubbing and the thread work in harmony, blending together colors to match natural insects. This also provides an extremely durable body with a depth and translucence in which the fibers will dance in active movement in conjunction with the soft hackle under the water’s surface. This is often misunderstood when it comes to dubbing soft hackled flies. Twisting the thread and dubbing together blends the colors, touch dubbing covers the thread, and no matter how sparse, the effect is quite different. The bodies of flymphs are comparatively quite robust, more so than lightly dubbed spider patterns or some other soft hackled patterns where the the dubbing is sparsely applied to the thread. An overall cigar-shaped taper is most desirable. One other characteristic the flymph tyer should consider is what the design mimics. As I said, it represents any number of actively emerging insects making their way to the surface. Any additions to the pattern that lead the fly fisher away from this type of presentation naturally removes the pattern from the definition of a flymph.

For example, adding a bead to the pattern would negate it from being a flymph because a bead’s purpose is the the exact opposite of what the flymph fisher is trying to accomplish when fishing a flymph."