Fly (angling)

“ The dry fly purist may argue until he is black in the face; he will never convert the wet fly devotee. Nor, on the other hand, is there the slightest chance of the South Country chalk stream Angler being induced to give up his favourite form of sport. Quite apart from the fact that different waters require different treatment, the two methods appeal to absolutely different temperaments. Take for example the wet fly man. He wends his way, probably down stream, fishing all the fishable water before him, carefully searching with his flies all the quick water and stickles ”

“ Constant care of the belongings of his art, be he fly or bait fisher, is characteristic of the faithful angler, and only simple justice to the tackle maker. There is nothing sadder or more dejected-looking than a crippled rod and a neglected “kit” full of snarled lines, rusty hooks, and moth-eaten flies.
In the matter of winter angling, the fly-fisherman has a decided advantage over him who uses bait alone. The art for him has more side issues. He may, if he can, learn to tie flies or contrive and construct newfangled fly-books. ”

“ This, certainly, is not at all the state of mind with which to take up dry fly fishing, or, for that matter, angling of any sort. In fact, the dry fly man should be a student of causes as well as of effects, for the simple reason that only in comparatively rare instances can the desired effect be produced unless the angler knows the underlying cause and proceeds to utilize it practically. This is particularly true of the selection and manipulation of the floating fly and, in a lesser but quite considerable degree, of casting the fly. ”

“ The inexperienced angler staggers like a drunken man, is occasionally drowned, and more frequently is ducked. You have to cast painfully, with steep precipitous banks behind you, all overgrown with trees, with bracken, with bramble. It is a boy’s work to disentangle the fly from the branches of ash and elm and pine. There is no delicacy, and there is a great deal of exertion in all this. You do not cast subtilely over a fish which you know is there, but you swish, swish, all across the current, with a strong reluctance to lift the line after each venture and try another. ”

“ The recommendations on Angling are without number, and there is nothing can delight the heart of the fly-fisher so much as to see the fish rise at the flies on the surface of the water, and their beautiful appearance when landed on the bank; this, with the varied scenery which the windings of the river presents to the imagination, as you roam along, are inducements that cannot fail to gratify the admirer of sportive fish and rushing streams. ”

“ Fly fishing is the most expert and scientific method of angling. It is the poetry of fishing. The fly fisherman usually wades in the brook or stream where he is fishing, although it is sometimes possible to cast a fly from the bank or a boat. It is useless to go fly fishing while there is snow water in the brooks but just as soon as the first warm days of spring come, then fishing is at its best.
The whole idea of casting a fly is to drop it in the most likely-looking places and to strike the fish just as soon as he seizes the hook. ”

“ I unhesitatingly answer that it would aid him in every branch of his sport.
What angler amongst us could tie a Turle knot, or even thread an eyed fly, left-handed? We should fumble and fume, and probably give it up in despair. To the dry-fly fisherman the advantage that would accrue through equality of arms and hands would simply mean a duplication of effective power. Think of the countless occasions when an overhanging tree or obtrusive bush has rendered a right-hand cast difficult, if not impossible. In one position in particular a left-hand cast is of extreme value. ”

“ It goes without saying that the fly that is most in the water, in the fishable parts of the pools, of course, will catch most fish. The patient, persistent angler has that great advantage over his less energetic brother of the angle. What angler is there, who ties his own flies, who has not built up a combination of fur, feathers, and silk by the river side, and, on trying the novelty, perhaps after days of disappointment, has found it unexpectedly to succeed, and who has thereupon fondly imagined that he has found a "medicine," only to be equally disappointed the next time it is tried? ”

“ The very drying of your fly is too severe upon the heads of gut-mounted flies. Eyed hooks have, however, had to fight their way to the front, so prejudiced are we all, and I can picture to myself now a prominent legislator, a great angler and the author of one of the best sporting books published of late, standing by me on Test side, on a meadow near Longparish, his cap literally covered with artificial flies attached to strands of gut—a most extraordinary sight. The fish were most unkind, taking greedily some kind of small black insect, or fisherman's curse. ”

“ Hastily putting on a Thunder and Lightning two sizes larger, I sent him out, braving the ducking I was undergoing. The first fly that reached the spot was answered by a fine head and tail rise, and I was fast in the big one. For a short time he played sulkily, either through not grasping the situation or through trying to induce me to believe him to be a small one. But I was not to be deluded, and, as he kept edging up into the big water coming down the centre arch of the railway bridge, I let him have a bit of the butt of my 18 ft. ”

“ Personally, I would just as soon follow a good angler down a pool as precede him. Unless a fish breaks the water in his rise, the fisherman can tell little of what is happening below the water level, except when, by chance, a glimpse of a silver flash is accorded him. But he may have moved a fish with his fly, and, knowing nothing, will have moved a yard down stream, his next cast being a yard below the fish. The next fly, suitably offered, if it be about the same size, may lure our friend to his destruction. ”

“ Let me add this only, that some flies have forked tails, and some have horns, both which you must imitate with a slender hair fastened to the head or tail of your fly, when you first set on your hook, and in all things, as length, colour, as like the natural fly as possibly you can: the head is made after all the rest of the body, of silk or hair, as being of a more shining glossy colour than the other materials, as usually the head of the fly is more bright than the body, and is usually of a different colour from the body. ”

“ But many precious minutes have been wasted; the fly has got itself fixed in one of the knots in your landing net. Never mind, break it off; you must get to sterner business. So you take some few more minutes in threading the eye of a small, dark sedge fly, as the fish by now must be at work upon the larger flies. Flop! flop! on the opposite side, under the shadow of the reeds. See that your fly is dry and cocks well; keep out of sight—an absolute essential in evening fishing—and go for that uppermost fish. That was a good rise; was it at your fly? It is hard to see by the waning light. ”

“ Your field glasses will often reveal to you a more likely fish—at the tail of the weed, maybe, or under the thorn bush on the opposite bank—and it may be worth while to float a fly over him and give him a trial. If he accepts the offer he is worth to you several got out under more favourable conditions.
When fish are really smutting, and the water is almost boiling with rises, the angler's patience is most sorely tried. Nothing seems to tempt them; the smallest gnats ever tied are far too big. ”

“ Moreover, angling conditions are such in this country that the fly-fisherman to be consistently successful cannot rely solely upon either one method or the other—he should be passably [11] expert with either the dry or the wet fly, employing one or the other as conditions warrant or the occasion renders imperative. ”

“ First, I begin to set on my hook, placing the hair on the inside of its shank, with such coloured silk as I conceive most proper for the fly, beginning at the end of the hook, and when I come to that place which I conceive most proportionable for the wings, then I place such coloured feathers there, as I apprehend most resemble the wings of the fly, and set the points of the wings towards the head ”

“ One of the most proficient manipulators of the rod and line I have ever seen can pitch a fly, cocked and floating, almost anywhere within reasonable limits, but his line invariably cuts the water from point to fly, straight and accurate enough may be, but like whip-cord. Consequently, he is not the successful angler that his qualifications entitle him to be. An ordinary fisherman casting a less straight, but lighter, line will frequently beat him in catching fish. ”

“ They take an artificial fly with a cad-bait, or oak-worm, on the point of the hook; and the oak-worm, when they shew themselves is, better upon the water than under, or than the fly itself, and is more desired by them. ”

“ Any salmon angler with the slightest experience will know what is meant by "hanging a fly" properly, and its taking powers as compared with a bunch of lifeless feathers floating down stream. So far we are all agreed; but when we attempt to discuss the details of the fly itself we are prone to differ amazingly.
Some years ago, on the occasion before alluded to, when I was fishing the River Clady, in Donegal, the nets having been removed for that year, the river was full of fresh-run fish—it was in July. ”

“ And here I will give some cautions and directions, as for the natural fly, and so pass on to baits for angling at the ground.
1. When you angle with the artificial fly, you must either fish in a river not fully cleared from some rain lately fallen, that had discoloured it; or in a moorish river, discoloured by moss or bogs; or else in a dark cloudy day, when a gentle gale of wind moves the water; but if the wind be high, yet so as you may guide your tools with advantage, they will rise in the plain deeps, and then and there you will commonly kill the best fish ”

“ TROUT FLIES.
“That we are wise men, I shall not stoop to maintain, but that we do love angling we are assured of, and therein we know that we are in unison with very many greatly wise and wisely good men.”—Thaddeus Norris.
“The true angler is not confined to fly-fishing, as many imagine. When the fly can be used it always should be used, but where the fly is impracticable, or your fish will not rise to it, he is a very foolish angler who declines to use bait.”—W. C. Prime.
“The creative power of genius can make a feather-fly live, and move, and have being ”

“ I do not pretend to any great experience of May fly fishing, though I have been a devoted dry-fly angler for many years; but I do not remember to have seen fish act so capriciously in my previous experiences. The birds, however—the warblers, chaffinches, &c.—were quite equal to the occasion, and took heavy toll of the ephemeridæ. I particularly noticed what I never remember to have seen before, i.e., a cock blackbird darting out of the bushes at intervals to secure a fluttering Ephemera Danica, and returning to his shelter to pick the luscious morsel to pieces at his leisure. ”

“ The other method of using the fly, harling, which is practised on a few big rivers, consists in trailing the fly behind a boat rowed backward and forwards across the stream and dropping gradually downwards. ”

“ In general, all sorts of flies are very good in their season, for such fish as will rise at the fly, viz. Salmon, Trout, Umber, Grayling, Bleak, Chevin, Roach, Dace, &c. Though some of these fish do love some flies better than other, except the fish named, I know not any sort or kind that will ordinarily and freely rise at [10] the fly, though I know some who angle for Bream and Pike with artificial flies, but I judge the labour lost, and the knowledge a needless curiosity; those fish being taken much easier, especially the Pike, by other ways. ”

“ Those happy days when there is a good rise of fly, when the fish are in their stations, heads up, and lying near the top of the water, and the wind is not too contrary, should indeed be gratefully remembered. A short length of water will suffice for the dry fly man—a few hundred yards. ”

“ Almost every book on angling contains a more or less understandable treatise on fly-casting, and it is only for the benefit of the virtual beginner at fly-fishing for trout, and further with a view to completeness and the emphasizing of certain points which even the old hand is prone to forget or possibly neglect through carelessness that the following brief explanation is incorporated here. Casting the floating fly differs little essentially from the manner of casting the sunken fly ”

“ Indeed, some of the ultra dry fly enthusiasts have arrogated to themselves the distinction of practicing the most artistic [88] and sportsmanlike method of angling, and look askance, if not with disdain and contempt, at the wet fly-fishers, whom they designate as the "chuck and chance it" sort. ”

“ If the fly, as most are, be of several colours, and those running in circles round the fly, then I either take two of these threads, fastening them first towards the bend of the hook, and so run them round, and fasten all at the wings, and then make the head ”

“ After having set on the wing, I go on so far as I judge fit, till I fasten all, and then begin to make the body, and the head last; the body of the fly I make several ways; if the fly be one entire colour, then I take a worsted thread, or moccoda end, or twist wool or fur into a kind of thread, or wax a small slender silk thread, and lay wool, fur, &c. ”