The Flies of Dr. David Burns

Dr. David Burns, Master Fly Tyer, conservationist, and fly fisherman, is currently enjoying his time in retirement after serving a distinguished career as an educator, a 3 year stint with the Washington Department of Game, and 30 years as a fisheries biologist with the USDA-Forest Service. During that time he has written, published, or presented many professional reports and papers dealing with fisheries science and conservation and has been an active member of several professional organizations. Dr. Burns has won numerous fly tying awards and competitions over the years and received coverage in many magazine articles and books. It you would like to know more about Dr. Burns and his flies, see his Contributing Fly Tyer pager at The Flies of Dr. David Burns. 

For now take a few moments to view his beautiful new originals below and many of the flies formerly submitted to Salmonfly.Net. This is the second set of flies inspired by Scottish Tartans, submitted by Dave. They are added to the first for the sake of comparison and so you can see the Dave amazing ability to translate the colors from a swath of cloth into a beautiful fly.  In the examples below, the pattern inspired can be viewed by hovering your mouse over the corresponding tartan swath. Dr. Burns writes, "The observer will have to imagine that the sets of tartan are symmetrical."

For the fie most recent submissions,  Dave says, "Here are a couple of new "tartan" flies that I recently did for customers.  The Robertson is after the ancient Robertson hunting tartan and is tied with a somewhat short "Kelson" style wing.  The Macdonald and Macleod is a combination of two tartans, the underwing is from the Macleod dress tartan and the overwing is from the Macdonald of the Isles tartan; this one was tied for a chap who had both sides of his family of Scottish heritage."  And so as you hover your mouse over the second two swaths. the fly will not change.

Hover mouse over tartan to view the fly it inspired in the window below.

Previously Submitted Flies

Hover mouse over to observe in the window above.

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Also see

By Dr. David Burns