Knotted umbrella fly [Disheolier Skoulmet]

A bigger contrast was almost not possible at the Dutch Flyfair yesterday. Yann Youenn Bouglouan from Brittany (NOT France) sat there at a fly tyers demonstration with minimalistic materials between two heavily equipped fly tyers. As a micro fly connoisseur I was immediately drown to his flies. Because his Dutch was as good as my French, we spoke in English about our passions about tying small flies, entomology and catching mullets with #16 nymph patterns. Without wasting words: a great guy!

Yann is the mastermind of the Disheolier Skoulmet fly. He explained that Disheolier Skoulmet means literally umbrella knotted. The "knotted" refers to knotting the hackle. This is just a overhand knot with one or two hackle feathers. Yann prefers the Grizzle hackle because it has a strong shaft (or ragis).

He demonstrated two versions of this minimalistic fly in a nymph and a dry fly.

•  The nymph version: This fly concept is used in shallow streams were nymphs float just under the surface in their emerging process. Tying: Take one (1!) hackle feather and tie a over hand knot. Put a drop of varnish on the hackle knot to keep it in place. Then strip all the barbs of the shaft from the knot to the desired length. The result is a thin thread like shaft. Then attach the shaft to the thorax of a nymph. The nymph a separately tied. All is shown in the picture above. Another picture of this fly can be found on this page of Fly tyer Ad Hoogenboezem.

•  The dry fly version: For the dry fly you tie the umbrella knot to the hook without the shaft (like on the nymph). For the umbrella you use two (2!) parallel hackle fibres to tie the overhand knot (also varnish!). This gives you more hackles to float and two wing like tips sticking out of the hackle. On the dry fly Yann first ties in the tail, body and rib of the fly. Then he ties in the knotted umbrella and a thorax with a little dubbing. See the picture below on a #16 hook. Yann noted that this fly will survive a few trout attacks, so it is more an innovative "fly-tiers fly" than a commercial long lasting pattern. Another tip from Yann came from an old (Brittanic?) man who did not use tying thread. He used to tie the hackle to the hook with only overhand knots of the debarbed feather shaft! That is really minimalistic. Perhaps useful in a survival situation when you only have a hook and a feather (and nylon and a high end rod reel etc :-)).

Yann at work, tying the dry fly as shown above:

Thanks Yann!!

An more comprehensive story and tying sequence of this fly can be read in the article "Vissen onder een parasol, Disheolier Skoulmet & umbrelle by Ad Hoogenboezem en Leon Links. This article can be found in issue 97 of magazine "De Nederlandse Vliegvisser".