Wet Fly - Alexandra

 As they usually do on the clickbait headlines; "This fly is banned!!". And to be fair, it was apparently, because it caught so many trout. It is a lough pattern, but is also used for sea trout on the rivers. Bit of history:

It is a Scottish pattern that was originally called the "Lady of the lake" and was later renamed after Queen Alexandra. It was apparently so successful in the mid 1800's that is was banned on some waters.

The picture below is of a variant of the Alexandra as tied by Davie McPhail. I will link to his video below.

I have to say, though, that it is a beauty. 

The Alexandra pattern is as follows:

Hook: Size 8-12 Wet Fly Hook

Tying silk: Black 

Tail: Red ibis substitute or slip of swan, dyed scarlet. Davie McPhail's variant uses red Marabou.

Body: Flat silver tinsel 

Rib: Oval silver tinsel. Davie's variant uses thin silver wire

Hackle: Black cock or hen hackle 

Wing: A pinch of green peacock sword fibres with slips of red ibis substitute or scarlet swan tied on either side. Red tinsel in Davie's variant. 

I like the variant tied by Davie McPhail. I like his videos in general.

What's up with the weather

 The weather has been, lets just say, less than favourable the last couple of weeks. I've planned and schemed, but to no avail. Every weekend seems to be a wet mess. Did get about between spells of rain, notably to ride up the mountain after storm Eowyn battered Ireland on the 24th of January. Rode up to Cruagh wood on the 1st of Feb for a spot of coffee with a view.

The evening of the 2nd Feb the Crescent Moon was seriously close to Venus. If I had known that it would be the last bit of stargazing to be done for the month of February, I would have made more of an effort. Be that as it may, I managed to get this shot, which I'm quite happy with.

And then it started raining and being generally Irish weather. 

Sitting around moping, I realised that the trout season is around the corner. I have not fly fished in ages, and I have never tied my own flies. Which ones to use though? 

So I have been scouting around for Irish patterns. I will be posting patterns that I have collected along with my attempts at making them. Should be interesting and entertaining, to say the least.

More stargazing

 The weather over the last couple of weeks has been, shall we say, challenging 😁. Fitted one night of stargazing in in the Wicklow Mountains, but the wind was so bad that I couldn’t take any pictures. Need a steadier tripod / bracket combination. 

Did however manage some backyard shots with the iPhone and a new app. The app is called AstroShader and it is a free app. I am suitably impressed. It takes a series of pictures and automatically stacks them. 

The results are quite good. 

This picture of Orion with Jupiter and Aldebaran to the right taken from my backyard in a class 7 bortle sky. I’m impressed. 

Was also able to capture this one with the crescent moon and Venus the other night. 

Tried another setup last night. Let’s just say that it was less than stellar. 

But I think I am on the right track. Some more experimentation required. 

Good week for stargazers

 A couple of things happened this week. 

Firstly, I dropped the bike. Some idiot in a van coming barrelling around a corner on the wrong side of the road. Had to stop very sharpish. Unfortunately I was committed into a corner of my own. Tried to keep the bike upright. No luck. Broke some indicators, a mirror and the clutch lever. I can tell you it was fun getting home with half a clutch.

Approximately €100 later, everything is repaired and ready for the next round. Except my wrist, which is still slightly sprained, but not half as bad as it was on Thursday.

To lighten my mood, this week saw Mars and the twins line up perfectly. In true Irish tradition, the weather did not want to play ball. I was in and out of the house a million times just to be greeted by spectacular cloud cover right where the objects of my interest were supposed to be. Eventually, 11pm on Friday evening the clouds mostly parted, and there it was, all three of them in a row:

The other item of significance at the moment is the proximity of Venus and Saturn to each other. In fact, on Saturday (18th Jan 25) Saturn and Venus were 2.2degrees from each other. This time the clouds played along.

These shots were taken with an iPhone, so excuse the quality. 

Hiking around Powerscourt Waterfall

 On Christmas Eve I felt the need to escape the maddening crowd and headed to Crone Wood just outside Dublin. From here you can hike up Maulin mountain on a loop trail. 

A plus on this route is that you have rather spectacular views of Powerscourt Waterfall on the way up. There is even a bench or two set up overlooking the waterfall if you want to have a bit of a rest.

There was a lot of fog about, and I found "Far over misty mountains high" stuck on repeat in my head.

The trek up to the top of Maulin Mountain was rather muddy, and when I reached the top, fog all around. So no spectacular views for the album. I did however get my picture of the cairn, as you do.

I might just return in the summer for some spectacular view photos.

The entire trek up the mountain and the associated video clips can be found on the newly created YouTube channel 😁. 

Oh look, here is a link: https://youtu.be/GGWnR-Y8j0U

I used the All Trails app for general navigation. My expedition can be seen here