vincent p. norris wrote:
..... for a dry fly I would go with
a Pass Lake. For nymphing, Pass Lake. Wet fly......um, Pass Lake, I
suppose. And for a streamer, it's hard to beat a Pass Lake.

Wolfgang, in a dire emergency, would you even consider using a Picket
Pin?

vince

Sorry for taking this and running with it - I'll make sure to put down the
scissors first...

I really like the Picket Pin (actually a whole group of flies that are
similar). In fact I just tied up a bunch of simplified Picket Pins for
Tim's swap. I recently found out where the fly got it's name. My friend
Big Jim tied some Picket Pins last week at our TU meeting - pretty much the
traditional pattern on a wet fly hook with the peacock herl head. I know
what a picket pin is and was wondering how the fly got it's name - it
doesn't remind me much of any picket pin I had ever seen (well, I've only
ever seen illustrations). For those who don't know, picket pins are
basically a metal stake with a hole or loop at the top that you use to
secure your horse. I remember seeing reading about them years ago in an
article about the equipment used by the Union and COnfederate cavalry units
in the Civil War (each side used a very distinctive picket pin - I have no
idea why they were so different, but it was probably a States' Rights
issue...).

Anyways, I commenced to look up the history of the Picket Pin fly to see
where the name came from, and it turns out there's a small animal, a ground
squirrel, the Uintas Ground Squirrel (Spermophilus armatus) that has the
nickname Picket Pin. I guess these things like to stand up in the meadows
and from a distance they reminded somebody of an abandoned picket pin.
There are several other ground squirrels in the Rockies that most likely
share the nickname. The Picket Pin fly gets it's name from the use of this
little critter's tail fibers which are used for the wing. Us poor East
Coasters, not having a ready supply of Rocky Mountain ground squirrels, use
the plain old common gray tree rat's tails.

Anyways, we have a favorite streamer out here in Western Massachusetts
created by one of our local tyers, Dave Goulet, that goes by the name Moby
Dick. (However, given it's similarity to the Picket Pin and many Maine
flatwing streamers, it's hard to say it was 'created' rather than 'evolved'
or 'adapted') I have fished the Moby Dick all over and with it have caught
many types of fish in all kinds of water. The Moby Dick uses red pheasant
tail tippets for the tail and a mallard flank feather as the wing, but the
body is the same as the Picket Pin (peacock herl with a palmered brown
hackle). I prefer the Picket Pin's squirrel tail wing because: it holds up
better than the mallard flank feather, and it's a lot easier to tie because
you need an absolutely perfectly symmetrical flank feather. I prefer the
red tippet tail because of the attrctive color - the bland brown hackle
fibers of the traditional Picket Pin are too subtle and get lost in the wing
fibers if you tie it down wing style (which I do for the streamer version).

I tie mine without the peacock head because I think it makes the head too
big. A smaller black thread head is easier to tie anyways, and works just
fine in my experience.
--
Stan Gula
http://gula.org/roffswaps