A HISTORY OF FLYFISHING by Conrad Voss Bark

 

(Merlin Unwin, 1992)

 

Bell’s Bugs

 

Bell tied artificials to represent the insects that he found in the Blagdon trout, including bloodworms, midge and sedge pupae and beetles. There was not a winged fly to be seen. In the 1930s he was able to buy a practice at Wrington, not far from the lake, and opened a surgery in Blagdon itself, just up the hill. By now Bell had a reputation as a great fisherman. He was always taking trout when others were blank. Gradually his imitative patterns became known.

 

A friend of Bell’s, Eric Newsom, describes Bell’s method of fishing, and as this was probably the first time that imitative patterns had been fished on reservoirs it is worth giving the details:

 

Bell would always go off on his own, trying to avoid other rods. He had a pear-shaped landing net slung over his shoulder on a cord. He always fished from the bank with three unweighted flies on a gut cast, size 1X. He liked to fish over sunk ditches and holes and weed beds. He moved slowly along the bank, casting as he went. He cast out as far as was comfortable. He made no attempt to go for distance but let the flies sink slowly, judging the time so that the tail fly did not get snagged on the bottom. He used the knot at the end of his greased silk line as a bite indicator. When the flies were fully sunk he would gather them in slowly.

 

His flies were quite small, 10s, 12s, sometimes 14s. He might have a Worm Fly on a single hook on the point, a Grenadier (caddis pupa) on the middle dropper and a Buzzer (midge pupa) on the top. All his dressings were plain and simple.

 

Nevertheless in the 1920s and 30s he set the scene and pointed the way in which imitative patterns of underwater insects were to develop as one of the major techniques of reservoir trout fishing. The new flies had arrived. They were very soon in demand.

Extract reproduced by kind permission of Merlin Unwin Books

 

TWO HUNDRED POPULAR FLIES by Tom Stewart

 

(A & C Black, 1979)

 

Grenadier

 

Some years ago an enlightening article written by Col. Esmond Drury appeared in the Fishing Gazette. It gave particulars of several nymph-type patterns which had been specially designed by Dr Bell of Wrington for use on such stillwaters as Chew Valley and Blagdon.

 

Anglers who fish the lakes and reservoirs there took immediate notice and some of the patterns described have been markedly successful on these waters and elsewhere. Among these is the Grenadier, a very lightly dressed spider type of fly, which the writer has been using by way of experiment and with some success on Scottish lochs and small reservoirs.

 

Presumably, Dr Bell intended the Grenadier to be fished sunk, but it has been found, in practice, that it will also take fish when used as a floater. I discovered this by accident while fishing a small West of Scotland loch. The Grenadier, on the tail of a three-fly cast, persisted in floating on the surface instead of sinking. It took five fish during a short-lived rise in near calm conditions.

 

The hook size recommended for this fly on Chew Valley and Blagdon waters is a 12 or 13 (old numbers) but I was fishing an even smaller size – 15. I imagine that it was the cock hackle which kept it afloat.

 

The dressing mentioned by Col. Drury is hot orange seal’s fur or floss of a similar colour. I used floss and ribbed it with oval gold tinsel, as prescribed by the pattern’s creator. The hackle I used was light furnace cock (no more than a couple of turns), but I am assured that a pale ginger hackle makes an equally attractive fly.

Extract reproduced by kind permission © Tom Stewart, 1979, Two Hundred Popular Flies,

A&C Black Publishers, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

 

RESERVOIR TROUT FLIES by Adrian V W Freer

 

(Crowood Press, 2010)

 

Comments on individual fly patterns devised by Dr Bell

 

Amber Nymph (Bell)

This is one of the very earliest stillwater nymph patterns, designed by Dr Bell of Wrington for use at Blagdon Lake in the 1920s as a sedge pupa imitation. Although perhaps considered a trifle dated nowadays it has a nice buggy look about it, and it still performs well, either as a sedge or general purpose nymph pattern.

 

Buzzer Nymph (Bell)

This is one of the surviving patterns by Dr Bell and it illustrates just how advanced he was for his time. It incorporates many of the features we recognize today as being essential in buzzer imitations; a body tied round the bend of the hook, ribbing to suggest segmentation and white breathers. It should be fished very slowly in the upper layers of the water, retrieving only sufficient line to keep in touch.

 

Green & Orange Nymph (Bell)

This is a little known creation by Dr Bell of Wrington which was designed to replicate the pupa of a large cinnamon sedge which hatches out in July at Blagdon. It should be fished in conjunction with a floating line, retrieving very slowly, or casting to rising fish.

 

Grenadier (Bell)

Dr Bell devised the Grenadier for use at Blagdon and, although it has the shape and colouration of many aquatic creatures, we do not actually know what he tied it to represent (a bloodworm is probably the most likely candidate). Nevertheless, it is a proven fish catcher still going strong almost one hundred years later. Fish it slowly in nymph style, or else as a bushy bob fly on the drift.

Extract reproduced by kind permission of Crowood Press

 

ADVANCED STILLWATER FLYFISHING by Chris Ogbourne

 

(David & Charles, 1993)

 

Grenadier

 

The Grenadier is a pattern devised and developed on the shores of Blagdon between the wars by the great stillwater angler Dr Bell. His pioneering work in terms of investigative fly dressing is well known, and he is universally acknowledged as being one of the original innovators of close-copy patterns. But for all that – and here is the enigma – it is unclear what he was copying when he created the Grenadier. In general shape and outline, it is reminiscent of many of the traditional spider-type dressings and belongs to an era when wet flies were very much the vogue on both river and lock. However, if it was designed to represent a particular species, we shall never know exactly which one, as there are no records. Despite delving deep into the Blagdon archives, there is no cast-iron proof of what Dr Bell was imitating.

Reproduced by kind permission © Chris Ogbourne, 1993, Advanced Stillwater Flyfishing,

David & Charles Publishers, an imprint F&W Media International