The Ultimate Fishing Fly

I started to come round with the vibrations of bumping along, pitch black in some kind of vehicle, then was manhandled upright and dragged down flights of steps, the noise of slamming doors echoing through my groggy head, feet scraping along , then I was sitting. The lights blinded me when my guards took the bag off my head and untied me. In a concrete basement somewhere I faced the guy who I used to call my fishing buddy.

“I’m really sorry about all this secrecy and security, but there is serious money at stake” said Brian.

“You’d better explain” I replied, feeling dizzy and nauseous,

“Here it is, in a nutshell” Brian settled back behind the desk, “I had an idea, drew up a detailed business plan, and trawled it around all the venture capitalists I could find in the City, and some Russian oligarchs too. One of the Russian connections agreed it could generate massive sales around the world quickly and they just threw massive amounts of money at it, most of it probably shady to say the least. I recruited Nano scientists, the keenest brains in pheromones, entomology, bio rhythms, plus photo-voltaic cell experts, ocular egg-heads, the best laboratory technicians, ultra violet and infra-red specialists. I built the team, fixed up this secret laboratory with its own secure residential compound, and incentivised them with huge bonuses and profit sharing. I gave them the detailed design brief, and a few million dollars later, after thousands of man hours, we made it! We have produced the ultimate artificial fly for fishing!”

He slid a coloured photograph across the desk for me to look at, and continued:

“It gives off particular vibrations peculiar to eclosion, emits a spectrum of life-like translucency for differing light conditions, exudes pseudo-pheromones, and comes either dry or wet styles in a complete range of traditional trout fly hook sizes. We will corner the world market, we have all the international patents and copyrights with our legal teams, ready to file. We have synchronised an imminent world-wide launch on the back of a massive multimedia marketing campaign launching today! The Asian factory has generated and shipped millions of units; everything is ready.”

My head was clearing despite trying to grasp and comprehend all he was saying, I interrupted his excited delivery: “Wow! This sounds absolutely fantastic! It’s amazing! Incredible! I expect you had loads of trouble keeping everything and the actual fishing trials secret too. Keeping the prototypes hidden from prying anglers during the field testing can’t have been easy. No wonder I haven’t heard from you for ages!”

Brian went white “F-fishing t-t-trials?” he stuttered, suddenly horrified “Fishing t-trials, f-f-field tests? Oh no!”, he wailed in dismay “I had a gnawing feeling I missed something…Oh my God! No trials, no field tests, no-o-o!”. He staggered away, pale and haggard.

Before I could stand to follow hands seized me from behind, then everything went black again, until I came to lying on the pavement outside my house, dizzy and unsure what to do.

This was over two months ago. Nothing appears to have happened. His family are increasingly very anxious, his wife phones every day, but there has been no news at all. I check the papers constantly, grimly expecting an unidentified corpse to have been found somewhere. The Russian mafia would probably enjoy the irony of the body being discovered in one of the more expensive trout streams, but I sadly expect they probably settled for the convenience of the Thames.

The Fly:

I have done my best to re-construct the fly that I saw in the photograph from memory, my grogginess at that time may mean I’m not exactly right, and of course I don’t have the science or the materials, just that vivid image, indelible. Here goes anyway:

HOOK: Osprey VH131 Nymph Hook #12

THREAD: White GSP

TAIL: Nature’s Spirit Moose Mane x 4

ABDOMEN: Rainbow dubbing (as in Lance Egan’s “Rainbow Warrior”)

RIB: Guttermann Sulky, Black

WING 1: Aero-wing, Grey

THORAX: Split thread with Alpaca and Angelina mix dubbing, spun

WING 2: Partridge hackle, 2 wraps

HEAD: Thread dyed brown with permanent marker, varnished and whip finish
FETTLING: Comb through then cut back any overlong fibres