Edwin Rist (left) at age 16 is an incredible student of fly tying. Charlie Chute referred to Edwin, his brother Anton and Tony Smith as "future" of salmon tying. I couldn't agree more! See ANTON AND EDWIN RIST Edwin has has taken photos of a Green Highlander in various stages of development. His only description is "pretty self explanatory" . I hope this is only the first of many to come. Edwin has added some additional information regarding the Green Highlander underwing: "For the Highlander, I basically did what Wayne Luallen does in Tying the Atlantic Salmon Fly, only I snipped the stem a little too far towards the tip, making it look a little cropped. The rest of the fly is done exactly how it looks, no hidden quirks anywhere except I put a few strands of seal fur under the front tinsel wraps just for the heck of it."

Click on the thumbnails below to see a larger image.



His next fly is an original creation he named appropriately Pyrite. Edwin's comments: "Unlike the GH, I did a couple of odd things with this new fly. It is my own invention, so I had a few liberties in the construction respect.


The tag is silver flat and gold flat, wrapped and overlapping to be seamless much like a silk body. Because I wanted this fly to have a metallic shine (hence the name), I tried to use as many iridescent materials as I could, and Monal pheasant seemed to be the obvious feather. I also doubled the tail and crest to add to the coloration.




The underwing is something I did differently. Because I have the vertical body veilings, I did not want to have an underwing close to the body, so I Z-crimped the tippet making it arch high and clear the first set of veilings, which it did. I put three pairs of Peacock swords on either side to increase the color of them and make them more noticeable. To get them to ride along the top of the wing I curved them extremely so they would ride the angle closely, then I stroked them along the side of the wing to allow their barbs to hook into the wing, and flatten them.



For toppings, I soak them beforehand, as stated in Radencich?s book, but instead of shaking them dry and laying them out on their natural curve, I put a loose loop in the tip, so the wing and tail force them to flare and create a cascading effect, which I find interesting to look at, and work towards. The lower horns (tusks) are tied in similar to how some people tie in normal horns, and how it is done in Radencich?s book, while the upper horns are stroked with a fingernail to give an artificial, more extreme curve over the top to offset the tusks and accent the shape."