Dali Fly

Recently, writer Tom Davis put me in touch with master fly- tier Pete Fleischman, thinking correctly that I might have the skin of our local specialty, the Mearn's quail.Its spotted fethers were neeeded for the"modern" classic salmon fly called the Dali, after the artist of course.

Traditional Atlantic salmon flies are strange things, surreal colorful attractors (or annoyers?) to tempt a quarry that does not eat in the rivers where it spawns. They are huge, complex, Victorian or  Edwardian, made of almost ridiculous numbers of species, and I have always wanted one. Now I have a fabulous original. Pete writes of its composition:

"The fly is called “The Dali”, designed by Mark Waslick, a photographer, fly tier, etc. from Vermont. The pattern uses the Mearns Quail feathers that you so graciously sent to me. There are four sections to this pattern each are veiled at the top, bottom and both sides with jungle cock. In the second section from the rear you will see first a pair of black spotted wing covert feathers, back to back, and white spotted breast feathers. At the fourth section behind the head there are two more black spotted covert feathers, back to back. The wings are made of individual strips of colored turkey tail feathers with Amherst pheasant tail. The blue cheek feathers at the base of each wing section are Blue chatterer substitute, Asian jay. The keel feathers on the bottom of the fly are peacock crest feathers. The gold tail feather and topping feathers are from the head of the Golden pheasant."

All I can add is "!!!!" Right or double click for bigger image.