I find myself tying gold ribbed hare's ears (GRHE) throughout the year - both the orginal and variants. I suspect the same in true for many tyers all over the world. This raises a possible simple observation here - yet despite the consistent and often intense flow of new patterns, materials and the general urge to explore new avenues in fly tying, there appears to co-exist a unwavering consistency towards the establised, the proven. So although we know this fly has been adapted for a range of applications, we still often dress the GRHE per the orginal. Maybe new designs and patterns themselves play a role in both de-limiting and valuing classic patterns such as GRHE? Anyway, I feel slightly 'out of sorts' if I don't have a GRHE of some description when on the river or the lake. It is a very verstaile fly - when in small sizes it can pass for a mayfly nymph or in large sizes, for a stonefly or dragonfly nymph. For the river, however, it can be argued that it comes into own as a imitation of the emerging olive. So I always wanted to write something about the GRHE, to applaud its fish catching abilities and advocate its effectiveness to anybody new to the sport.
GRHE and the olives
It appears the origin of the GRHE can be traced to the mid-late 19th century. The early application of the GRHE and its espousal by the great British anglers such as Skues, Halford, Ogden and Hofland appears strongly associated with matching the spring olives. For example, Skues in his '......' writes:
"For it the fact that whenever I can see the Greenish olive body of this spring dun I know it the season of the Hare's ear - the gold ribbed hare's ear has come; and I can put up the gold ribbed hare's ear with the utmost confidence and I can find it more certainly and infallibly right than any other dressing than I know" (p.90).
In the reading of Skues work, he is an ardent champion of the fly, taking any opportunity to praise its fishing effectiveness. Skues comments on the special features of the aritificial, or trigger features, as stated nowadays; the translucent nature of the fur and the gold rib. With the latter, he speculated how the gold catches some of the green of the underwater weeds reflected upward from below (p.90). Equally, Halford in 'Floating Flies and how to dress them' and 'Dry Fishing: theory and practice' (1889) held the fly in very high esteem commenting in the former publication that it was the most deadlist fly on the River Test. He acknowledged the nymph-like features of the fly - how the short hairs picked out in the body of the artificial beared a strong resemblance to the 'branches' in the natural nymph (fin-like appendages) of the foremost segments of the nymph (p.166). William's in his seminal work ' The Dictionary of Trout Flies' (1948: 5th edition) devotes five pages to the GRHE. In a similar vein to the writings of Skues, he writes:
"The GRHE is a a good example of an artificial which trout appears to take for some particualr natural insect, to which, in our eyes, it would seem to bear no resemblanace at all. As already mentioned, it is an infalliable pattern when the medium olive of speing is being taken (and sometimes when the dark olive is on the water), yet the rough grey body of the GRHE, ribbed with gold, does not look to us in the least like the smooth bodied olive dun, and it is almost certainly taken for the hatching nymph of the olive" (p.181).
"To sum up, the GRHE tied as a winged floater and fished on the surface is a passable copy of the olive dun, especially when tied in the Ogden manner with a sparsely dubbed body which gives the fly a slender appearance. Dressed as was the original pattern with a dubbed body and a thorax and hackle of fur, it is probbably best suggestion of an olive nymph in the act of handling, and fish in this form either in the surface or a little below, it is a fly for this purpose has no equal" (p.185).
As Williams remarked, the GRHE was revised to incorporate a wing. The professional fly tyer from Gloucestshire and inventor of the famous Invicta, amongst others - James Ogden - first tied the fly with a wing to pass as a dry dun imitation. In his delightful and early text on fly dressing, Ogden describes the hare's ear blue dun, as he terms it, as an excellent spring fly, 'and one that I use occasionally all the season, varying the colour of the wing and hare's ear - the wings, by giving them a slight tint of olive in onion dye; the hare's ear by mixing with it a little olive fur from a monkey's neck" (p.7). Interestingly, in his primary dressing, he omitts the gold rib and uses gold tinsel only for a tag. He would then sometimes rib the hare's ear with fine gold tinsel, and put on upright wings from a woodcok wing feather. Donald Overfield in 'Famous flies and their Originators' (1972) speculates how Ogden may have winged the fly to commercially gain from the growing discipline of dry fly fishermen.
Overall, Williams has very interesting pages on the GRHE, especially concerning Halford and his eventual rejection of the GRHE. Likewise, John Roberts points out in "A Guide to River Trout Flies", " Its orgins are obscured by age but its reputation was established even a century ago when Halford, who praised its trout taking qualities, was to discard it as being too nondescript for this liking" (p.25). From what has been written, this rejection of the GRHE appears to be explained by Halford's methodology. Overfield (1972) explains:
"It must be remembered that Halford had embarked upon a system of matching the natural fly as precisely as the fly dressing would allow. Given that baseline, the first essential was to copy the natural insect. Where does the GRHE fit into such a scheme? The blunt fact is that it does not. Even today knowledgeable anglers and fly dressers are divided in their opinion as to what the trout imagine that particualr artifical to be. In Halford's world there was no room for guesswork and so the GRHE was eliminated" (p.75).Maybe Halford's rejection of GRHE was an implicit endorsement of its nymph credentials? So this is obviously part of the famous nymph-dry fly debate between Skues and Halford and supporters. The inventor of the GRHE remains unknown. Williams writes "in referring to the orginal form of the GRHE, I must admit to standing on dangerous ground because nobody knows when or by whom it was invented" (p.185). Interestingly, Malone in his 'Irish Trout Flies' provides several hare's ear wet dressings from the Dublin fly dresser and tackle dealer, Thomas Ettingsall about 150 years ago since Malone's publication.
As for the development of the GRHE from hereon in, I know much less and have less supporting evidence to avial of. I think it is fair to say, it is still highly popular as an emerger pattern, and not just for the olives. As the respected fishermen Stan Headley in his 'Trout and Salmon Flies of Scotland' writes "it remains one of the most effective representations of the nymph-cum-emerger stage of a whole series of insects: small emphemerids, sedges and midges" (p.113). I personally find it invaluable during an olive hatch. I suspect for many anglers, however, the GRHE probably competes with CDC styled emergers, comparaduns and klinkhammers. The full nymph dressing with a wing case of say pheasant tail or turkey is now a established variation of the GRHE, and has been for many decades. Although, in many dressings, the body is often tied from fur more located on the face of the mask, as opposed to the ears, obviously making the fly more a hare's nymph or a hare's face nymph. This maybe more so for commerical dressings. Of course, the goldhead hare's ear is now well used on rivers. Taken together, this leads to how the GRHE is today used to for many items on the trout's diet.
Stillwater
The GRHE is used on stillwaters and with a range of variants. The early patterns appear to have been quite akin to the original dressing, albeit tied on long shank hooks and leaded with weight. For example, John Wilshaw and Stuart Billham devised the long shanked hare's ear nymph for drift fishing and it is believed to be very effetctive when fry are about. Another pattern is John Waddam's Hare's Ear - a general nymph pattern. Charles Jardine Hare's Ear face midge.
America
I would make a few final comments on the hare's mask. I am still learning about fly tying materials, including dubbings. As such, my appreciation of the hare's mask has increased over the years. I would rate it an excellent dubbing for fly tying. The mask offers a variety of textures of fur and a range of colour shades on one mask. Indeed, for anybody new to fly tying, I would recommend you buy hare's masks and dye them. You will gain access to some sutble colours
