The first fly that I could find called the Dandy is a gorgeous ‘mixed wing’ I found in the 1848 book by Frederick Tolfrey, “The Jones Guide to Norway.” Looking nothing like any subsequent Dandy, it is in my opinion however the prettiest of the lot. The pattern is listed as follows:
Hook: no 8 or 9Tail: golden pheasant topping
Tip: silver twist
Body: pale green and silver twist, three turns of black ostrich, dark blue mohair and two turns of jay hackle. scarlet mohair and silver twist, three turns of a dyed scarlet hackle, deepest claret pig’s wool on the shoulder and silver twist.
Throat: black hackle dyed blue
Wing: (mixed in strands) Peacock herl and wing, golden pheasant tail, light mottled turkey tail, and one blue feather from the right and left wing of the jay.
Head: brown mohair
Some thoughts while tying this fly. Over-dying the black hackle with blue, even a deep blue did not do a whole lot. Fiery brown mohair looks great on the head, especially since Tolfrey doesn't specify any particular brown. The wing on this one was tied in as per instructions from the time period about how to separate out and mix the strands when building a mixed wing. Having tied this now, I would combine this body, with the other Dandy wing, and add the jay from this one over that as a shoulder. I wonder how that would look?
What I want to know now is why did fly tiers make such a radical departure in form from this lovely fly to the “whole feather wing” to be described when tying the later Dandys? Since George Kelson was the next author in line, so to speak, why did he not simply marry the strands in the wing instead of the radical departure to a much simpler pattern?
Having posed that question, the first example that I will describe is directly from George Kelson’s “The Salmon Fly” 1895, and is as follows:
The Dandy as per G. M. Kelson, 1895Tip: silver tinsel
Tag: yellow floss
Tail: topping, summer duck, chatterer
Butt: black ostrich
Body: silver tinsel nearly 2/3 finished off with light blue floss
Ribbing: silver tinsel
Throat: light blue and guinea fowl
Wing: two tippets enveloping two projecting jungle fowl,
Shoulder: summer duck covering lower part of tippets
Cheek: chatterer
Horns: blue macaw
Head: black Berlin wool
Kelson makes the following comments; "RIVERS : Tweed, etc.
(NOTE. This fly occasionally -kills under general conditions of weather and water, but is frequently found useful as a special standard for moving sulky fish)"
Writing in 1907, John James Hardy describes a Dandy that is exactly the same as George Kelson's with one exception. Where-as Kelson lists a black Berlin wool head, Hardy omits this detail, to a better result I feel. His pattern is listed as follows:
The Dandy as per John James Hardy, 1907
Tip: silver tinsel
Tag: yellow floss
Tail: topping, summer duck, chatterer
Butt: black ostrich
Body: silver tinsel nearly 2/3 finished off with light blue floss
Ribbing: silver tinsel
Throat: light blue and guinea fowl
Wing: two tippets enveloping two projecting jungle fowl,
Shoulder: summer duck covering lower part of tippets
Cheek: chatterer
Horns: blue macaw
Head: black
Note, as I said, Hardy and Kelson are pretty similar except for the head. Note also, in Kelson’s book, the fly is shown with at least one topping over the wing, though neither Kelson nor later, Hardy mentions it in the description. I have tied is as per the picture and the flies I have seen. This is the reason behind my departure from my usual habit of listing the patterns in chronological order. Even though there were authors published between the two publication dates for these patterns, the two share these two obvious connections; one being they are almost identical, the second in the presence or lack of a topping.
Published in 1898, Sir Herbert Maxwell’s pattern is the first I could find to explicitly describe the wing with a topping over. While it is basically the same as the patterns already mentioned, this is it’s one major difference. The other differences are minor, such as the use of Indian Crow in the tail instead of Summer duck and chatterer, and of course the use of chenille as head and butt adornments. Translating his pattern from the table to standard format, it reads as follows:
The Dandy as per Sir Herbert Maxwell, 1898
Tag: silver wire and citron floss.
Tail: a topping and Indian crow.
Butt: black chenille.
Body: lower half, silver tinsel; upper half, sky-blue floss.
Ribs: silver twist over.
Hackle: sky-blue cock's over the floss, gallina at shoulder.
Wing: a pair of long jungle fowl, over them a pair of tippet feathers, not so long, and the tops of a pair of barred wood duck feathers, still shorter, over the last; topping over all, blue macaw horns.
Cheeks: blue chatterer
Head: black chenille.
He adds the following comments: “My favourite fly in all this class. It was named after the late Lord Alexander Paget. It is an expensive fly to dress, but it is extremely pretty, and very effective in the sizes from 16 to 12.”
In this I agree with him. It is a very pretty fly, and thanks to the need for chatterer, is still an expensive fly to dress correctly.
Dr. T. E. Pryce-Tannatt, in 1914, describes a pattern that is substantially the same as the three preceding patterns, the only difference being the use of jungle cock in the tail to replace the wood duck used in Kelson and Hardy. His pattern is as follows:
Dandy (hook, 11/2 to 2 inches).
Tag: Silver thread and lemon floss.
Tail: A topping, Jungle Cock and Blue Chatterer (the last somewhat shorter than the preceding).
Butt: Black herl.
Body: First two-thirds, flat silver tinsel; remainder, pale blue floss.
Ribs: Fine oval silver tinsel.
Hackle: A pale blue hackle, beginning with the pale blue floss.
Throat: Speckled Gallina.
Wings: A pair of Jungle Cock feathers (back to back), and one pair of tippets dressed as in the Black Ranger above.
Sides: Broad strips of barred Summer Duck, covering part of tippets up to bar nearest
root.
Cheeks: Blue Chatterer, a topping over.
Horns: Blue and Yellow Macaw.
The last version I have been able to locate is from an illustration, with no actual pattern listed for it. In William E. Hodgeson's “Salmon Fishing”… (1920), there is a lovely painting of a Dandy that seems to correspond exactly to Hardy’s pattern.
This brings to mind another pattern also shown in these illustrations, the Stevenson. Both Hodgeson and Maxwell show a Stevenson that looks, at least in the wing, to be a Dandy. In fact Maxwell even lists it as such in his description (See prior listing here under Stevenson). He clearly states that the wing of his Stevenson is that of the Dandy, while the body is that of the Parson. There is even a Ranger with a Dandy wing, the Drum Ranger, from the Drum Collection of Sandy Irvine--Lord Alexander Irvine, Laird of Drum Castle and Drum Estate, dated around 1930. It seems the Dandy was a fly to be borrowed from, even if it is not as pretty, in my opinion at least, as the original.
Lastly, there seems to be the assumption that because many of the patterns found in Kelson were also to be found in either Hardy or Hale, and occasionally both, that these three authors copied each other. This may have been the case with other patterns, but it is not the case here, at least as far as Hale is concerned. He does not mention this pattern at all as far as I can see.
