Fly fishing is something much deeper than catching fish, and something similar happens with fly tying, where a passionate fly tyer can find amazing stories and knowledge that will be invaluable in the river.
The Tup's Indispensable is a fly that has well earned its place in history, as it is not on View more...Fly fishing is something much deeper than catching fish, and something similar happens with fly tying, where a passionate fly tyer can find amazing stories and knowledge that will be invaluable in the river.
The Tup's Indispensable is a fly that has well earned its place in history, as it is not only stubbornly effective every time we use it, but in the beginning it was surrounded by an aura of mystery about its components, which were kept secret for many years; years during which the Tup's Indispensable became so popular that its creator finally fell ill for the amount he had to tie.
Mr. RS Austin, who had served the queen well and fought in the Crimean War, retired in the late nineteenth century in Tiverton, South West England; where he was devoted to the business of to-bacco. As he was a fly fisherman, in his business he sold with her daughter Agnes some traditional materials to tie flies, while he also produced his own flies including. One of them was called Red Spinner, and had the body formed with a special dubbing.
The real story begins in June of 1900, when Austin sent a sample of dubbing -a broken fly with which he had taken many trout- and instructions attached to Mr. GEM Skues. Skues, who years later would become the father of modern fishing nymphs, was just beginning his experiments with wet flies, challenging the stubborn disciples of Mr. Frederic M. Halford, the father of Dry Fly fishing, who would not accept another type of technique that was not dry fly; although in those Chalk Stream of Britain they had fished with wets for many generations.
Skues, following the instructions, tied copies of the fly that Austin had sent -nameless- and went on to test it in the water, the river Itchen. Austin only revealed the secrets of the mix for the dubbing to Skues and another fisherman named Mr. CA Hassam, a very good amateur tyer, asking them to keep secret the components of dubbing. Austin thus maintained a monopoly in the sale of the fly after Skues published that the Tup's Indispensable was essential, generating hundreds of requests to Austin.
Skues gave it the name Tup's Indispensable, as can be seen if we read his first book, Minor Tactics of the Chalk Stream (1910), and also because one part of the components of dubbing came from an indispensable part for a ram: its testicles.
The first part of the name refers specifically to Tup's rams, used as reproductive males. Breeders tied a sponge or cloth soaked in yellow dye on the underside of the ram to see, in days after, which sheep had a yellow dye in its back, a sign that the ram had had a good night. They said then that the sheep had been mounted by the ram or that it had been ¨tupped¨.
The essential component in the dubbing of this fly is the ink-stained wool with urine from the ram's testicles, which is washed and then a bright yellow and very translucent texture comes. This was mixed with hair from an English Cocker Spaniel, lemon yellow color, then yellow or red mohair, cream dubbing from seal, and some hare mask fur from between the ears (hare's poll). A suggestion by Skues to Austin replaced the yellow or red mohair by a pinch of seal dubbing in crimson color (or red).
Using wool from the sheep's testicles was not an idea by Austin, as we find flies with that material in the mid-eighteenth century.
Austin and his daughter kept the secret formula to maintain the monopoly of the original model.
Austin died in 1914 but her daughter continued tying this fly only until 1934, when she retired and then freed Skues of the promise made to his father. CA Hassam, the second person who knew the coveted formula, had died some time before.
Being able to write on the fly Skues said:
'Here is the true and authentic pattern. It is too much to hope that at last we may now see the true patterns on sale in the tackle shops?
'I have always had it in my mind that the prescription was so valuable to anglers at large that it ought not to be lost, and it was my intention, if it were not disclosed in my lifetime, to leave a record of it to be made public when the time for its disclosure came.
'That time has now arrived, and I have been generously released from the moral obligation which so long bound me to keep it a secret, while fuming at the many absurd abortions which tackle dealers were selling as the real thing.
'I believe I was the first angler to use the magic dubbing. I was, at the time, in constant cor-respondence with Mr. R. S. Austin. The date I do not exactly recall, but, from a note in Mr. Austin’s handwriting describing its first use, I judge the date to have been June, 1900. He sent me a sample on a broken Limerick eyed hook, telling me that with it (the actual fly) he had killed at the mouth of the Loman, where it debouches into the Exe at Tiverton, in two or three successive evenings a number of big trout which the natives there counted uncatch-able, one of them exceeding 5lb. another 3lb. ½ oz. another 2½lb. and another about 2lb. Being naturally very much interested I asked Mr. Austin (in returning him the pattern) what was the nature of the dubbing, and he very generously not only gave me the prescription, but also sent me enough of the made-up material to dress a number of examples of the fly.
'I told Mr. Austin that I thought the fly deserved a title, and in his reply he asked what I sug-gested. I replied that there was “So and So’s Infallible”, So and So’s Irresistible”, and so on – “Why not ‘Tup’s Indispensable’?" He said he did not care to name it and for the moment the matter dropped.
'The essential part of this dubbing is the highly translucent wool from the indispensable part of a Tup, thoroughly washed and cleansed of the natural oil of the animal. This wool would by itself be, like seal’s fur, somewhat intractable and difficult to spin on the tying silk, but an admixture of the pale pinkish and very filmy fur from an English hare’s poll had the effect of rendering it easy to work. There was also in the original pattern an admixture of cream coloured seal’s fur and combings from a lemon yellow spaniel, and the desired dominating colour was obtained by working in a small admixture of red mohair. For the mohair I generally substituted seal’s fur, and I believe Mr. Austin did so himself. When wet the Tup’s wool becomes somehow illuminated throughout by the colour of the seal’s fur or mohair, and the entire effect of the body is extraordinarily filmy and insect-like.
It is interesting to see what Austin said in 1890 about his favorite creations, in writings that were never published about fishing in rivers north of Devon, but these sayings also appear occasionally and partially in different books such as Mr. WH Lawrie's.
No. 28 - The Red Spinner
'This is a hackled fly tied with yellow silk on a N. 00 Sneck bend hook. It is made with a body sparsely dressed, of a mixture of white ram’s wool and lemon coloured Spaniel’s fur in equal parts, and a little fur from a hare’s poll, and sufficient red mohair to give the mixture a pinkish shade. It is hackled with a yellow spangled lightish blue cock’s hackle and has whisks of the same colour.’
Austin called the Tups a Red Spinner before Skues suggested the new name, he accepted reluc-tantly.
Skues had an intense exchange of letters with Theodore Gordon, father of the dry fly in the eastern United States, and Jim Leisenring, master of wet flies and creator of the famous Leisenring Lift in the forties.
Both Gordon and Leinsenring appreciated the qualities of the Tups and its famous dubbing, and then tied their own models adapted to different waters.
At first, the Tup's Indispensable was a dry fly with a hackle and a tail made of strong crystalline cock feathers, but Skues in his experiments found that it was much more effective when wet, and that it was shaped as a nymph, so changed the tail by softer hen fibers and used the same material for the hackle but just shortened them considerably.
This new Tup's is often mentioned in his writings, it was his first nymph-shaped fly and from there begins the true saga of the nymphs, but we'll leave that story for another time.
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List of materials
Hook:
G.M.E Skues used mainly size 00 hooks with a sneck bend made by Hall’s. today only collectors have them, so I use a Partridge L2A, or similar ones, with a perfect bend in sizes 14 or 16. The size 00 today is practically a 16.
Thread: Pearsall’s Gossamer made of natural silk. Color: pimrose yellow. The Pearsall’s is a very traditional thread in classic English flies. You can still find it and it’s a pleasure to tie traditional flies with it. The silk’s shine cannot be found View more...Hook:
G.M.E Skues used mainly size 00 hooks with a sneck bend made by Hall’s. today only collectors have them, so I use a Partridge L2A, or similar ones, with a perfect bend in sizes 14 or 16. The size 00 today is practically a 16.
Thread: Pearsall’s Gossamer made of natural silk. Color: pimrose yellow. The Pearsall’s is a very traditional thread in classic English flies. You can still find it and it’s a pleasure to tie traditional flies with it. The silk’s shine cannot be found in other materials.
DUBBING:
1 part of dubbing from a ram’s testicle, dyed yellow because of the urine. 1 part of soft hair from an English cocker spaniel dog, yellow lemon color. Some hair from a hare’s mask, from in between the ears, without long hairs. Some red seal hair. Yellow mohair or red, as in the original mix. Skues changed the yellow or red mohair for red seal. I have to thank my good friend Manuel Pereyra Terra, who bravely got me the cherished ram dubbing unafraid of the consequences.
Tail:
Hen fibers. Color: Rusty dun (grey with rusty colored edges). This is for the nymph version.
HACKLE:
Hen feather, with short fibers. Color: rusty dun.
Steps
Step 1
Tie the tail with the rusty dun hen fibers, use very few fibers. The tail must be short.
Step 2
Leaving 3 or 4 turns of yellow thread on the back, shape a tapered body with the dubbing mix by Austin and Skues. It has an amber tone with a pinkish hue.
Step 3
Tie a hen feather (with short fibers) by its tip. Color: rusty dun. You can compare the length of the fibers with the hook gap and shank to check the proportions.
Step 4
Comb the hen feathers to the back softly so we don’t break the raquis.
Step 5
Wrap with 3 turns of the feather, keeping the fibers to the back.
Step 6
Finish with a very small head and cement (with the cement you prefer). I use a touch of cyanoacrilate cement, followed by a touch of shiny varnish that dries slowly but endures much more than a lacquer varnish.
