This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Ray Bergman Abbey.
The Ray Bergman Abbey is a wet fly listed in his book entitled Trout (1940 – fourth printing) on page 22, Plate No. 1.
As I’ve mentioned many times, I enjoy highlighting a Bergman wet fly because it forces me to sit down and tie these elegant flies. It looks simple, but I’m still working on mounting the wings properly.
Bergman was well known for his wet flies, but his book also lists dry flies, streamers, nymphs, steel head and land locked salmon flies.
If you are a regular at RiverKeeper Flies, you recall Bergman’s book includes colored plates to illustrate the dry and wet flies with a description of each fly in the back. It was the first book to provide color fly illustrations.
Other Ray Bergman flies I’ve included as Throw Back Thursday Flies are: the Arthur Hoyt, the Babcock, the Blue Bottle, the Bostwick, the Bouncer, the Brown Turkey, the Chantry, the Darling, the Light Blow, the Mark Lain, the Montreal, the Montreal Yellow, the Mrs. Haase, the Olive Dun, the Rio Grande King, the Loyal Sock, the Pathfinder, the Peacock, the Prime Gnat, the Silver Stork, the Walla-Walla, the Whirling Dun, and the Wilson Ant.
The Abbey
Tag
Flat Gold Tinsel
Tail
Golden Pheasant Tippet
Rib
Flat Gold Tinsel
Body
Dark Red Floss
Hackle
Brown
Wing
Gray Mallard
This fly was tyed on a Mustad 3906, size 10.
Enjoy…go fish!
The Dark Cahill and the Abbey are the two flies that probably made me a wet fly addict.