Hooked on dead mice and a jellybaby

After last month’s debacle over traditional North Country Spiders, we need to move forwards.

I’m fed up with the old- fashioned, same old, same old look of my fly box, so I’m determined to freshen it up a bit this season.

There is no doubt about the effectiveness of flies with soft, mobile hackles, and many of the original ones are associated with the northern end of the country.

I always try to avoid upsetting people, so my new introductions will be affectionately referred to as Southern Softies; I’ve been giving the whole idea a lot of thought.

The top, right hand basket in the freezer is reserved for my fishing-related perishable paraphernalia.

It contains cooked hemp seed for the roach, half-used tins of Spam for the tench and dead stuff for the trout flies.

So, obviously, that’s where the bag of frozen mice is stored.

Now, this hasn’t gone down too well with the domestic management department, but it’s really not my fault.

I needed a silky fur from which to form my new flies. My old pal, another southern softy, suggested mouse.

Plenty of the little blighters hole up in my shed for the winter, munching on stored spuds, so out came the traps. None of that namby-pamby live catch nonsense either; I want the varmints dead.

So, a trio of Little Nippers began their work. By the way, (there’s no debate,) the best bait is definitely a red jellybaby’s head.

In next to no time I had half a dozen Mus musculus ready for free-flow freezing.

The next concern was to decide just exactly how to best use the mouse fur to create the effect that I wanted.

I needed a fly that created an outline that the fish would recognise as food and I wasn’t sure how mouse fur might behave when it’s wet.

I did toy with the idea of conducting some experiments involving deceased rodents and a glass of water, but I’m afraid that the aforementioned domestic management department vetoed that one before any conclusive evidence was forthcoming.

What I did learn, however, was that mouse fur is longer than one might think.

So, I reached the decision that the mouse fur would be best removed from its former owner before being applied to the fly dressing thread by a process that fly tiers call “dubbing.”

That done, the thread and fur, when wrapped around the hook would produce just the effect that I was looking for.

It was time to phone Steve to tell him of my ideas and prepare him for a delivery of mouse fur.

We had a long natter about the exact recipe for the first of the Southern Softies.

I think that he believes that I have finally flipped and am barking mad. Despite all that, we came up with a plan.

I had a sleepless night trying to decide how best to remove the fur from a mouse.

Was it to be Wilkinson’s Sword or Philishave rotary? After a bit of a pantomime featuring a half- thawed mouse, I decided on the third way; scissors.

Having harvested the body material for my fly, I turned my attention to choosing a soft mobile feather to produce the hackle.

This was an easy decision; the grouse is the first of the game birds to be in season, so the mouse and grouse was born, or if you prefer it, the grouse and mouse, I really don’t mind.

So, here it is then; you have our full permission to copy it and try it out as soon as the season is open. Let us know how your southern softie performs.

Flies dressed by Stephen Cheetham. 0113 2507244. www.fishingwithstyle.co.uk

Roger Beck 01439 788483.