A Strange Kind Of Magic

Charles van straubenzee introduces a salmon fly that combines the most unlikely colours and materials to deadly effect.

- Charles Van Straubenzee

IT WAS DURING my first trip to Iceland, some years ago, that I was introduced to a great many new and varied ways of tying salmon flies. Colours that seemed outrageous when compared with traditional patterns, not to mention a judicious use of synthetic flash and some innovative sizes, shapes and weights, all had that fish-catching magic. It was that same magic that I hoped to harness when I began devising the Strawberry Mackenzie. The name for the fly comes from the trick I use when explaining how to pronounce my last name: Straub-enzee like the first part of strawberry and the second of Mackenzie.