Charles Edward Walker

“ A trout will undoubtedly sometimes take anything moving through the water which simulates life, if it be of a suitable size. This is shown by the manner in which they take the fancy flies; although here again, as one particular pattern of a fancy fly kills better than any other on one particular water, I think that very often this fancy fly is taken by the fish for some creature which is particularly numerous there. ”

“ Given a bright sun, a light sandy bottom and clear water, a small crustacean swimming between the eye of the observer and the surface often will not appear to be like the creature when it is seen out of the water. ”

“ While it is probable that the natural fly does often sink under the surface, and may then be taken by the trout, the wet-fly of the fisherman does not as a rule behave as does the natural fly when under water. That the trout takes the wet-fly fished up stream, which is allowed to come down with the current without any drag and close to the surface, for the natural fly it represents, is also very probable; but these facts do not in any way tend to disprove my theory. ”

“ At any rate, if the fish only takes the artificial fly because it is apparently something alive and moving, I am sure that he would seize it with much more avidity if it represented one of his aquatic neighbours on which he has been feeding, and if its appearance reminded him of many previous pleasant meals. ”

“ I have never myself used a vice in fly-dressing, and think that it is a great advantage to be able to dress a fly without using one. Any one who can dress flies [Pg 30] well without a vice will be able to dress them even better with a vice, and will be able to dress flies at all sorts of odd times and places where a vice could not be used; while he who has never dressed flies without using one, will find that the imitations he produces are anything but neat, when he first tries to make them without his vice.
Alder and Caddis Flies. ”

“ We have an example of this always with us in the photograph, where red and blue, in relation to each other, certainly do not produce the same effects on the plate as they do on the eye; and as we have no accurate knowledge as to the effect of contiguous colours upon a normally monochromatic eye, we could hardly be certain of producing an accurate monochromatic imitation of a multi-coloured object, which would deceive that eye.
The case of a colour-blind human being is certainly not a normal case, so the shade value of the various colours to this eye could hardly be taken as a safe standard. ”

“ In the sea many and very various effects may be produced upon objects moving through the water when passing between the eye and the surface, by light, by the reflecting powers of the bottom of the water, and by the relative clearness of the water, all of which factors of the effect produced vary to an almost incalculable extent. ”

“ When we add to these the larvæ of flies and water beetles, the Crustaceans, Hydræ and Water Spiders, we must begin to realise that there are other things than a drowned natural fly for which the fish might mistake its imitation, with the materials of which it is made soaked in and drawn through the water. ”

“ A good space of shank should be left above the body.
The only legs which make any show in [Pg 101] the water are the hind legs, and they are the only ones it is absolutely necessary to imitate; should, however, the fisherman wish to imitate the others, one turn of a ginger hackle may be used.
When I described the Corixa in the Field I directed that the hind legs should be made with a strand of peacock herle. I have however found a better imitation of these legs since then, in the end of a quill feather from a starling’s wing. ”

“ In order to imitate this large thorax, it is necessary to have more room on the hook above the hackle and wings than in other flies to leave room for a turn of the chenille, of which the body is made, just below the head of the fly. This will be seen in the illustrations of the artificial fly on Plate II.
The body of the male is a bright yellow colour, that of the female is greenish. The male is rather larger than the female. These flies, which on windy days particularly, frequently fall on the water, are often taken very freely by the trout. ”

“ This manner of wet-fly fishing is very much like dry-fly fishing, and is certainly not the way in which wet-fly fishing is practised in lakes, and is hardly the most general way in which it is practised on many rivers. ”

“ As this child of my fancy has cost me many hours of careful thought and labour, I am inclined, with all due deference to these opinions, expressed by men of much greater experience than mine, to say a few words in its defence. ”

“ Though it would not be true to say that hitherto writers on fly-dressing have shown any lack of power of observation, still it is unfortunately true that their energy seems, strangely enough, to have stopped short at observing the natural fly, and has not been sufficient to carry them on to making even passable imitations, except of Ephemeridæ. With the exception of this family of flies, no one could possibly recognise the artificial through knowing the natural fly which it is supposed to represent. ”

“ Corixæ vary much in size, the largest and one of the commonest species being the Corixa geoffroyi, which is about half an inch long. In all Corixæ, the head is wide and is attached but slightly to the body. It is convex in front and concave behind, so as to fit the end of the thorax, and is as wide as the wings when folded and at rest. These insects possess four wings, which they frequently use, though they are somewhat clumsy in starting from the surface of the water. I have sometimes, however, seen them fly considerable distances. ”

“ The success met with in using the natural fly is very small. The reason for this want of success is the position in which the wings of the imitation are put by the fly-dresser. In this case, like that of the Alder, the fault does not lie with the fly-dresser, as the writers on fly-dressing direct that the wings should be put on in the same position as those of every other fly—that is, in an upright position. ”

“ My advice is, cultivate your trees, because they are of advantage as giving shelter to the fish. Not a single example of these tree windfalls has been found in the hundreds of autopsies which I have made, and all the caterpillars and [Pg 77] spiders that fall from the trees in a mile of water would not suffice to feed a single pound trout for a single day. They may therefore be discarded from consideration.”—Halford’s Dry-fly Entomology, page 138. ”

“ The movement of many of these creatures through the water is fairly represented by the movement of the artificial fly in wet fly-fishing; and, when the shade and colour and size of the fly is the same as one of these aquatic creatures, I am sure that the fish takes it, not for a fly, but for one of them. ”

“ Dewar’s book, also speaks highly of a sunk alder for “tailing” trout.
“To kill ‘tailers’ in broad daylight and in low water is quite an art in itself,” is another quotation from The Book of the Dry Fly upon this mode of fishing, and though the author points out that this is not true dry-fly fishing, still if the fisherman’s conscience allows him to use a sunk Alder down stream and worked in this manner, I think it should also allow him to use an imitation Corixa under similar circumstances. ”

“ Corixæ are insects which live in the water and are eaten by trout. They possess wings which they use frequently, sometimes flying a considerable distance, and I have seen trout take them just as they were trying to leave the surface of the water. The efficacy of the imitation, therefore, depends upon the skill of the fisherman, who must make it simulate in its movements the movements of the natural insect. ”

“ These are known to the fishermen as Curses or Smuts. They are often so small that there is no hook made small enough upon which to tie imitations of them. However, as every fisherman knows, when the trout or grayling are feeding on these flies, it is generally impossible to get them to take the imitation of any other [Pg 68] fly, it is worth while trying to imitate them on the smallest hook made. This is an 000, with a short shank. As it is extremely difficult to put wings on these flies, hackle patterns may be tried, but the winged patterns are the best. ”

“ As, however, these markings on the thorax and wings are hardly visible to the naked eye, they give the Corixa a generally brownish and shiny appearance. Of the legs, six in number, the hind pair are most used in swimming. They are somewhat flattened at their extremities to a paddle shape, and are fringed with hairs. I have seen the hind legs of the Corixæ when the insects have been suspended motionless in mid-water, standing out at right angles on each side of the body; and as in the imitation I am about to describe, the legs take this position when the fly is at rest or sinking in the water ”

“ My theory, stated briefly and more explicitly, I hope, than was the case in my article in The Field, is that under circumstances in which the wet-fly behaves more as does some creature having the power of swimming through the water, it is better to imitate this creature than any natural fly on the water, which cannot in any case behave in such a manner ”

“ The only thing of which I am sure is that we shall find it safe and comparatively easy to imitate flies in colours, but to make a monochromatic imitation of one, which would accurately represent it to a normally monochromatic eye (about which we know nothing) , in a medium of which we know very little, is practically impossible. ”

“ If the finger be dipped very slightly in the tin of vaseline, so that there is just a suspicion of it on the skin, and the hackle of the fly be rubbed with it, the fly will float as well as it does with the odourless paraffin, and the vaseline will not float off. ”

“ Thus the line should extend itself in a perfectly straight line in the air, at least a foot above the surface of the water, and then the fly will drop naturally upon it.
On Keeping the Line Floating
Unless the line be floating it is almost impossible to avoid a “drag,” which is, as a rule, absolutely fatal. The best way to make the line float is to rub the last twenty-five yards with vaseline, then go over the line with a lump of beeswax, and finish up by rubbing very gently with a rag with vaseline upon it. A rag should be carried when out fishing, with a small piece of beeswax in it. ”

“ For this reason I take the best means I can find to defend myself, and what better defence could there be than the published practices of two men whose sportsmanlike qualities have never been doubted? ”

“ The bunch of eggs which the female carries at the tail is best represented by winding on some bluish-green floss silk or wool at the end of the body, which should be carried well down on the bend of the hook, as shown in the illustration of the imitation fly. ”

“ The feather is taken and the lower part of the fibres stripped off, till a part is come to suitable for making a wing. A portion of fibres sufficient for making a wing is then separated from the fibres above and bent carefully downwards. If the fibres are stroked very gently between the thumb and first finger, they will arrange themselves, so that their ends present a rounded edge instead of a point. This portion of fibres is then grasped firmly between the thumb and first finger near the quill, and detached therefrom by pulling it smartly downwards. ”

“ In the normal human eye, only the central parts of the retina are sensitive to colour, the peripheral parts are practically colour-blind. Anæmia of the retina, which may be produced by pressure on the eye-ball, will render the retina, first colour-blind and then insensitive to light. ”

“ But here a very natural question arises as to what, if not the natural fly, the fish takes the imitation to be? In a communication to the Field in June, 1897, I described, under the heading of “A New Trout Fly,” the imitations of two Corixæ. This seems to be a key to the whole [Pg 89] question. The number of insects living in fresh waters, and possessing the power of moving through it, is enormous.
There are between 220 and 230 different species of Water Beetles in our waters. There are also very many different sorts of Heteroptera, including the numerous family Notonectidæ. ”

“ Some should have a tail made of two or three strands of hackle the same colour as the body. Some have appendages on the sides of the body, and in the imitations of these the hackle must be tied in at the tail, carried up over the body, and a couple of turns given at the shoulder. ”

“ Those who are red-blind do not see the red end of the spectrum, and the blue-green appears grey, though they have distinct colour vision of the parts of the spectrum on either side of the blue-green. In matching red with a green, they put a bright red with a dark green. ”

“ The proportion of Alders which get on the water is probably very small if compared with those which do not; but as the fly is in some places extremely numerous, even this small proportion becomes in those places a large number. ”