Heritage Flies - Part 4 Red-Butt Woolly Worm and the DDD. Peter Brigg The significance of the period from the early 1970s to the 1980s, when the direction and advancements in fly fishing and fly tying in South Africa were taking place, cannot be underestimated. It was a time when a group of flyfishers in the then Natal, were breaking new ground. John Beams, Tom Sutcliffe, Tony Biggs, Hugh Huntley and others whose innovative thinking contributed to many new techniques and fly tying styles suited to our local conditions. It was their pioneering work that influenced the future of fly fishing and tying in South Africa and the beginning of a move away from what until then, had largely been influenced by the English school of fly fishing. www.saflyfishingmag.co.za
Red-Butt Woolly Worm - the fly that ended the reign of the Walker’s Killer in the 1970s In the early 1970s the Walker’s Killer was toppled from its 20-year pre-eminence as the favourite wet fly by another, the John Beams Red-Butt Woolly Worm. Encouraged by tales of big stillwater trout in the foothills of the Drakensberg Mountain range, Tony moved to Natal in the early 70s joining Tom in Pietermaritzburg. Dean Riphagen described the Red-Butt Woolly Worm in The South African Fly-Fishing Handbook (New Holland, 1998), like this 24
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