"Mouches de Vallorbe" - the first and biggest fly tying atelier in Switzerland for more than 100 years.

Leaving his job as a worker in the metal industry, Charles Bickel opened about 1920 in Vallorbe (Swiss Jura ) a small fly making factory, with mostly women as fly tyers.

He experimented with new materials and new tying procedures.

Being himself a flyfisherman, Bickel developed many flies, true innovations- which were, in contrast to many new flies, not only nice, but also catching (lots of) fish.

Different "Mouches de Vallorbe" including the famous CDC Bickel were sold from Vallorbe to the shops in Switzerland.

After his early death in 1945, the business was initially continued by his widow and from 1960 it was taken over by the local resident Michel Fontannaz.

In the 1990s, operations had to be discontinued for cost reasons.

On 24th of march 2013, Rolf Frischknecht/ Swissflies bought "Mouches de Vallorbe" , including the whole collection with hundreds of patterns (description and example flies) and all rights from the last owner.

Preserving the Swiss fly tying tradition

We will present here for the interested fly tier all these swiss historic flies, page by page, images and detailed descriptions of the fly patterns developed 1918- 1945 by Charles Bickel - as soon as we have electronically scanned them.
All beautiful and successful patterns - try to remake them - they catch after nearly 100 years as good as they ever did.

To keep the tradition going, we'll be remaking the best flies just like the original- but on barbless hooks.

Please find at Swissflies:
CDC Moustique (Bickel 1924)
Yellow Mayfly- Mouche de mai jaune (Bickel, 1925)

We also invite fly tyers of today, who would like to participate in maintaining this tradition by making these flies and present them on this site, to contact us (send an email with your suggestions to sales@swissflies.ch)

On the other hand, any commercial remake is forbidden without the written permission of Swissflies, the holder of all rights of "Mouches de Vallorbe".

The pattern descriptions in the collection are in french- find here our Translation help for french fly tying terms and list of avialable historic fly tying materials

The flies of the Vallorbe collection
Click here to enlarge

"Mouches de Vallorbe" - collection 1918-1945

The Mouches de Vallorbe collection consists of one pattern book containing the early flies, one federal folder filled with later patterns and special flies.

There's also a collection of fly plates, which were used for presenting the flies to the shop owners, and as reference in the flyshops.

Thousands of fly patterns were developed from 1918 onwards with a variety of materials, carefully tied and individually sewn piece by piece on the pages of the book and the a federal folder.

Most flies are described in detail, thereby naming the threads and feathers to be used.

The following patterns are already published: Bickel CDC 1924 - - Mayflies 1925 -Winged flies 1923 No. 151-198 - Mouches anglaises 1924 No. 301-324 - Echantillons de Genève - Musterfliegen aus Genf 1924 Mouches de Genève 1927 - Mouches de Lucerne 1929 - Mouches de Berne 1928 - Mouches plumes perdrix 1928

Please note that all pattern descriptions in the collection are in french- please use our Translation help of french fly tying terms

Coming soon: more fly patterns from Mouches de Vallorbe (we have more than 3000 further unpublished historic fly patterns- a lot of work to do).

Fish a classic fly with a classic line Phoenix silk fly line