{"id":629,"date":"2009-11-13T11:42:10","date_gmt":"2009-11-13T10:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bxttlines.wordpress.com\/?p=629"},"modified":"2009-11-13T11:42:10","modified_gmt":"2009-11-13T10:42:10","slug":"the-tale-of-garry-the-dog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/btl.longlinemedia.co.uk\/index.php\/2009\/11\/13\/the-tale-of-garry-the-dog\/","title":{"rendered":"Revealed: The real story of Garry, the minister’s dog"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n

\"Garry,<\/a>
REVEALED: Garry, the real origin of that famous fly with his owner's daughter in the 1920s<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

FLY PATTERNS\u00a0 are a great source of controversy whether it be over hook sizes or the huge range of materials and colours available to the tyer. Occasionally too there is debate about the origins of a fly and especially its creator.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s entertaining from time to time to browse the wealth of online fly-tying resources around the world and marvel at the disparity in sizes, dressings and histories which can be attached to a single pattern.<\/p>\n

Take the Garry Dog, for instance. One of Scotland\u2019s best known salmon flies, with a long history and an equally lengthy track-record of success, to this day. It nestles in countless fly boxes under the name of \u201cGarry\u201d, \u201cThe Dog\u201d, \u201cYellow Dog\u201d and \u201cMinister\u2019s Dog\u201d in single, treble and tube formats.<\/p>\n

It was the source of an interesting exchange of views on flyforums.co.uk<\/a> last year when a Canadian fly-dresser presented her version of the fly in a livery which said much about North American dress style but little about historical record.<\/p>\n

\"Garry<\/a>
The Minister's Dog - owned by the minister's daughter around 50 years ago<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Garry Dog was the very first salmon fly I ever used and I thrashed the Tweed with it one November many years ago, but without success. I was told, as I suppose were many others, that it originated in Inverness-shire on the river which gives it its name.<\/p>\n

But a chance discussion at a dinner in Perthshire last weekend laid to rest any doubts about that famous sparse yellow, black and red fly, a dog, and a minister \u2013 and just where it first took wing.<\/p>\n

I found myself in the company of a man with documentary evidence of the very dog in question. Colin Martin is Kelso-born marine archaeologist of world renown. His grandfather Denholm Fraser was the minister at Sprouston, just outside Kelso from 1903 to the late 1930s.<\/p>\n

The Rev. Fraser wasn\u2019t an angler. But he was a kenspeckle figure in the Borders and would keep in touch with his flock, strolling the town with his dog Garry, and calling in on the local shopkeepers.<\/p>\n

\"Grays-Garry\"<\/a>
Garry Dog - contemporary Scottish dressing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Unfortunately, Colin can\u2019t recall the name of the tackle shop where his grandfather would stop to pass the time of day, but he does remember being told how the owner, a keen fly-tyer, bent to snip a few hairs from the energetic cross-Retriever to add to something that he was working on at the vice.<\/p>\n

Colin recalls: \u201cGarry, the dog, didn\u2019t come from Glen Garry, but the family used to go there for holidays. My grandfather was by origin a Highlander, so I suspect that was the reason for the dog\u2019s name.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the early days the fly was simply called \u2018Garry\u201d or \u2018The minister\u2019s dog\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

So the Garry Dog was born on the banks of the Tweed in Kelso in the 1920s, the product \u2013 as the redoubtable John Gray of Kilsyth <\/a>correctly records \u2013 of the minister\u2019s pet and a knowledgeable tyer. But who was he?<\/p>\n

Colin is trying to find out the name of the shop and its owner from a relative, but if anyone has any ideas, we may yet know before a century is out, the name of the man who actually created one of Scotland\u2019s best-known and still-successful patterns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Revealed, the origin of one of Scotland’s most famous salmon flies – the Garry Dog<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-game"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btl.longlinemedia.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/btl.longlinemedia.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/btl.longlinemedia.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btl.longlinemedia.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btl.longlinemedia.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/btl.longlinemedia.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btl.longlinemedia.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btl.longlinemedia.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btl.longlinemedia.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}