The Kite
The late Oliver Kite who was the originator of the ‘Kite Imperial’ inspired this series of flies. I first started reading about the ‘Kite’s Imperial’ some years ago after devouring books by Skues and Sawyer and moving into two books. One written by Oliver Kite – Nymph Fishing in Practice and the other by Philip Brown – A Fishermen’s Diary (a collection of articles published by Kite). Kite was a Welshman by birth, moving to Lancashire in his teens and finally settling in Wiltshire after his extended duty in the British Army. Born in 1912, he settled in Netheravon, Wiltshire and took up residence (the Avon ran at the back of his cottage) across the road from the great Frank Sawyer becoming close friends and fishing companions. Unfortunately this friendship ceased abruptly and in his book Kite only briefly refers to Sawyer. The influence of Sawyer on Kite is obvious when reading his writings and referring to both the style of fishing and the flies used. Kite died suddenly in 1968 while fishing on the famous Test River.
Kite was a minimalist considering that presentation of the fly was more important than matching colour and the exactness of the insects. He published 6 dry flies as a writer (Hawthorn Fly, Pale Evening Dun, Apricot Spinner, Sepia Dun, a Brown sedge and the Imperial) towards the end of his life he found that just one, the Imperial, would catch fish no matter what real fly they were feeding on. He even reduced his fishing time and never fished the evening rise. What fishing he must have missed out on – spinner falls, midge hatches and massive caddis activity. Kite was also famous for the ‘bare hook’ pattern. A hook with a thorax of fine copper wire – was this a further development of the Sawyer theory?
We need to also remember that Kite fished the southern chalk streams of England, rarely moving farther afield.
When I first came to the UK and started fishing the streams in the north, I tied up a few of Kite’s Imperial using his traditional pattern. They worked okay but didn’t perform as well as some of the parachute and spider patterns I used. The rivers in the north of England suffer periods of spate when they run high and with large sections of them providing rough aerated water. Because they were lower in other periods, the fish populated these turbid areas of the stream. My Imperials just sank.
I was convinced that the basics of the pattern were right. It was effective in most situations, it looked great as a fly and I could catch fish when other patterns failed. I set about adapting the pattern into a parachute fly. “The Kite Series” was born.
Oliver Kite tied his fly with a pronounced ‘thorax’ right behind the hackle. The idea was to dress the fly in “the normal Netheravon manner”. I am not sure what he means by this but I am convinced that he was referring to the thorax of a Sawyer Nymph. Was it effective? Probably not because the fish would not have been able to see it anyway.
Kite never quite stated specifically how he dressed the Imperial and there are various theories as to the exact dressing. His description is even open to interpretation:
“I dress the fly on a size 0 or size 1 (16 or 14). Tying silk is purple and the hackle is honey dun, in theory. The whisks should be greyish brown in spring, honey dun or nearest later. The body is made of about four undyed heron primary herls, doubled and redoubled to form the thorax.
The fly should be ribbed with fine gold wire. It was the combination of the purple silk and gold wire which led to the fly being called the Imperial.”
Does the purple show through the herl? Was the herl wrapped around the thread (heron is fairly fragile) and then wound onto the hook? How was the thorax tied? How many turns of hackle? You can see that Kite left a lot unanswered. Perhaps if he lived longer these questions may have been dealt with. What is certain though is he left the world with a wonderful fly as his legacy. It is used today all over England and during many different type of fly hatches. The tying of the bodies of these flies is my interpretation.