Earlier in the year we came up with the ides of incorporating dyed cdc in traditional May fly patterns instead of the normal cock hackle.
This was an idea i had messed around with over the past 2 years as when fishing on the Irish loughs the weather could change form a nice wave to a sudden calm, resulting in changing from wet flies to dry patterns, resulting in lost time fishing.
My idea was to incorporate an under hackle of cdc so you could fish the wet may fly through the wave and the cdc would create movement in the fly and if you wanted to use it as a dry pattern all you needed to do was give the fly a few false casts to dry it out and cast it out so it would float on the surface.
Sure enough field tests were carried out and it was a success, the fly did float on the surface similar to a rollover may fly and when given a few pulls it would fish as a wet through the wave.
The 2 best patterns we used for this was the Corrib yellow and Corrib green.
This Autumn the fly tying classes will be adapting a few more patterns to include the cdc under hackle and hopefully these will be available for next years season.
Here are photos of the 2 patterns to let you see how they look with the cdc under hackle.
Why not have a go and post your photos for all to see.
Enjoy
Lawrence