Wow!!…. those are truly a part of fly tying history my friend.

Truly inspiring! The simplicity of materials is overwhelming in this day of the internet and competing for the ultimate suppliers. Tin foil, copper wire stripped-out and saved from old lamp cord, a little saved scrap of yarn from the mending basket, a feather or two. How modest. Surely made the fish brought to table being received with grateful appreciation. Thank you again Master McPhail for keeping it real.

Very interesting. Amazing to get your hands on them

Thanks for an interesting part of history! I’ve just got to try Frank’s pheasant tail

Fascinating...The simplicity is most humbling.

As rare snapshot of one of the giants of our passion. A treat for sure. Thanks Davie

Thanks so much Davie for this fascinating look into Mr. Sawyer's actual handiwork!

Beautiful little nuggets of flyfishing history right there! Thanks for sharing this Davie!

Thanks, it only goes to verify the old adage, necessity is the mother of invention. If we didn't have such an abundance of materials to choose from these days patterns would be very much like those from Sawyer. Lived it

Thank you so much for sharing such historical and beautiful flies with us!

Thank you and the owner as well.. This is quite a 'show stopper'. Those patterns are incredible design classics in any field. They exemplify simplicity and elegance of use of materials. Thank you gain-nothing is quite like seeing the 'real thing'. :-)

I never got to meet Frank Sawyer, but I did have the pleasure of the company of his son Tim for a day on the River Avon at Upavon in Wiltshire, more commonly known to us fly fishers as Frank’s back garden. For this area was where the great nymph angler and wildlife trapper invented his famous Pheasant Tail Nymph, known to anglers around the world as one of the most successful flies ever. Frank was also well known locally for inventing rabbit traps. Tim proudly spoke of his father’s love of the river where he was the keeper at Netheravon, a little further downstream from where we were fishing. Back in those days grayling were classified as vermin, a pest to the trout angler, so a catch and kill policy was introduced to control the ever increasing numbers. Dry fly-fishing caught a few grayling, but Frank needed to catch them much faster. He studied the main diet of the grayling by opening the stomachs of his catch to identify the digested insects. He would then catch live insect nymphs and keep them in pools so he could observe their behaviour and imitate them with an artificial fly. He invented the generic Pheasant Tail Nymph, tied with fine copper wire and pheasant-tail fibres, and then the Killer Bug, tied specifically to catch grayling. You can read much more about Frank in www.mereobooks.com/books/genre/fishing/just-me-and-the-fish

A wonderful and insightful history lesson. I’m still tying some of my flies on Mustads left over from my commercial tying days. They had graceful and entomologically correct dimensions but they had barbs that were too large and they always needed sharpening. Gosh they rusted easily. Thank you for sharing such an important part of fly tying history and thank you for sharing your practiced talent.

Nicely done Davie. Those are absolutely stunners. Thank you for the share of this little piece of history. 😊

Thant was awesome Davie, thank you! My first thought on the Killer Bug was what a simple bug tied on an old Mustad hook - it sure looked like a classic Mustad, that troublesome open eye that my thread would slide through, sometimes my leader too. In fact I once asked you about the "eyes" on the hooks you used. But that hook point was awesome, I forget if they called it Viking or superior on those paper boxes. I tied a lot of flies on the 3399, 3906 and 3906B, then 3366 that I liked the best. What a collection of proven fish catchers, and the history provided by you and some of your knowledgeable viewers. I always learn on this channel, thanks again!

I really appreciate you taking your time making a video like this to show us :-)

Very cool to see these flies , thanks for showing them to us :-)

Thanks Davie. Really cool to see the details of the originals

Lovely, Davie... thank you very much! Mike

Thank you for sharing this, davie. The PTN was a real surprise!

piscatorial historical showcase from one of history's best to a modern time master

Wait, you mean these flies were literally tied by Frank Sawyer himself? That is amazing! I didn't know these existed. Thanks for showing them 👍

Thanks for sharing that bit of history Davie! The Killer Bug is a killer! It's a very effective Cranefly larva pattern in the waters I fish - I usually tie mine on a short-shank hook with a furled tail. I was not familiar with his other patterns, seems that Frank Sawyer favored simple "guide flies" that wire quick to tie. ATB!

Davie I think the pheasant tail nymph with the silver underbody is actually Franks “ Bow Tie Buzzer “ Back in the seventies I bought some of Franks patterns which were tied by his wife and sold by the late Dermot Wilson via his tackle business at Nether Wallop Mill. Thanks for showing these patterns.

Amazing Stuff! Thanks for Sharing!

Davie I have a number of the same flies (tied by Sawyer) that were given to me by a Mr Birtwhistle who had emigrated to Australia in the 1960s. He impressed upon me that I should keep them in a safe place as they (even then) had a history.

Awesome flies Davie. I Googled Frank Sawyer and one of your video's came up from June 2009 with you tying Franks's Killer Bug.

From the days when making your own flies was actually an economy. I remember back in the 1970's Frank Sawyer's widow advertised flies she tied to her late husband's patterns. In T&S or Trout Fisherman I guess. Wish I'd bought some. That won't have been long before a certain Davie McPhail started appearing in print.

Good tying✌️Like👍👍👍

Hi Davie. Hope you are fine. Missing some new paterns. Al the best from Bavaria. Peter

Wonderful

thanks for sharing

Nice old flys

Hard to tie when I'm falling asleep cause your voice is so soothing.

The dark grey ones are Frank sawyers swedish nymph and I agree that the silver ones are the bow tie nymphs and I think that they were tied by Mrs sawyer.

Actually Davie his later killer bugs were not tied with 477 but a substitute since he couldn’t get 477. I to have some of his original flies and a card and a half of Chadwick’s 477 Flies as well!

treat for all.

Isn't the one with the silver foil, his Bow tie Buzzer?

WOW

What timing! I am very interested in Sawyers Killer Bug and bought the wire and the substitute 477 yarn from Semperfli to start tying these flies. I have been e-mailing my friends in Scotland getting their thoughts about this fly and they all had positive opinions about it. We have grayling in my favorite river here in Colorado, so I figured this would be a fantastic opportunity to tie some up and try grayling fishing for the first time. So any more info about this fly and Frank Sawyers other flies would be grand. Thank you Davie.

Love all your vids. Could watch em all day long. Davie, which flies would you recomend for flyfishing European coarse fish like roach, rudd, bleak and similar. THANKS