A few years back I started to follow some fantastic fly tyers from abroad. Since then they have become powerhouses in fly tying, largely influenced from the works of Popovics. There are some tyers out there that can tie a, and I use this word respectfully, a "better" Bob fly than Bob himself. Popovic's says that fly designs rarely stay exactly the same as the original, they just keep evolving. And that evolution occurs while giving credit to the fly originator and innovator him or herself. I believe, in fact, that Bob loves to see tyers, and not just everyone that can tie a Beast Fleye, who take what he has laid down as the foundation and improve on it, mostly, to solve a problem, or to fool and catch fish when they are fishing. Key point there, as many of todays social media and fly fishing show tyers don't even hit the beaches or set the 2 a.m. alarm clock to catch a tide, but anyway.
The tyers that piqued my interest were and are Paul Monaghan, Andrew van Wyk, and Rupert Harvey. I would see them on social media, early on, and then as their popularity crossed the various ponds they were seen on You Tube and featured in some of the on-line and print magazines here in the United States. Monaghan was one of the first to utilize the "Fly Drop" method of selling flies rather than
take and try to fill orders. Basically, he ties up a bunch, announces the drop or sale, the time hits, and BOOM, they're gone. Up in Maine Ben Whalley has had great success with that business model especially when it comes to selling his Beast Fleyes. Plug makers have been doing this for years on Facebook and it's fun to watch it live when it goes down. Don't blink or you'll miss it. But enough about those guys this all about Ru Harvey.
As the months went on I watched as Rupert Harvey became more visible, at least in the places where I surf the internet. Harvey started out down in South Africa, hit the United Kingdom, and now calls Ireland home. His flies have been sucessful in catching fish all over the world, and not just cute fish, but brutes as well. While I can tell you he himself is not more visible, his flies are. It was hard for me to find a photo of him to include in this post so the above You Tube video grab will have to do. I am sure he's been doing this far, far longer than I have been in the know. But in the last few years I have seen his tying and designs really exponentially, not "improve", but become more sought after to the point where his products are in fly shops, like The Saltwater Edge, here in the United States. His product line and fly offerings went
big into baitfish patterns, poppers, and crab flies and tying materials like yak and plastic bodies and cones and the like. You can order his stuff on-line, and it will come from Ireland, or find a local distributor here in the United States. When I hit the Stock the Box in Newport this past January I was the first to hit the racks looking for more of his Invisible Tabs and I cleaned Peter Jenkin's out of his stock.
So this week I spotted a teaser on Harvey's Facebook page. It didn't really catch my eye until it did. Harvey has been working on his "Beast Cheat Cones". I have to admit the first time I saw something like this was down in Jim Matson's, of Brine Fly Innovations fame, basement. He used to use plastic tubing in front of the reverse tied bucktails for his larger Hollow-style flies. If you look in the archives you'll find the proof in those posts that I ain't lyin'. But Harvey has done it again and this will change the game for many, many tyers.
If you look at what it is it's a series of plastic "cones" that you use to, or rather than, tie in the dreaded thread dam that so many of us struggle with. In fact, most of us, and many who post their flies on-line or at the shows, suck at doing. I'd rather see a dozen tyers out there doing it beautifully and correctly than 1,000 average tied flies that get rave reviews and, well I won't say what else they get, from other average tyers on any said site on any given day. But that's something else. To see how it should be done you can see Harvey's video tutorial below,
So what does this mean? Well, this will be a fly tying game changer. Not as in Chocklet's Game Changer, but it will level the playing field for those "average angler" tyers who need a few larger flies in the quiver if larger baitfish, like bunker, show up. There will be a lot of positives to Harvey's product, but trust me there will be some negatives. Let's first see what the man himself, Bob Popovic's thinks.
