Fishing Flies

Tail: Blue Cock Hackle.

Body: Red Wool.

Rib: Oval Gold Tinsel.

Body hackle: Red.

Wing: Red, Yellow And Green Dyed Mallard.

Head hackle: Guinea fowl (gallina).

These five flies are quite gaudy and clearly reflect the then new craze of tying gaudy flies that was engulfing the salmon fly at the same time (see here (#litres_trial_promo)). But how were they fished? Mrs Hutchinson gives us a clue:

Most capital sea fly-fishing can be obtained off the coast of Connemara, viz., in Bertraghboy Bay, at the Skyard Rocks, at Deer Island, and off the Isle of Mweenish and the Isle of Arran. The whiting, pollack [sic] that are to be met there, take a large gaudy fly boldly. I have with a fly taken some in those parts, as large as nine pounds. I use seven flies at once, and have frequently taken seven fish at the same time.

Mrs Hutchinson was ‘feathering’, lowering her line with seven flies and jigging them up and down with the aid of a heavy weight. Her flies were not ‘cast’ as we fly-fishers cast a fly. It is still possible to catch several fish (such as pollock and mackerel) at once on a multi-fly jigged rig. But there is no need for such complicated flies when jigging or feathering.

It was also the method used by Sanez Reguart, Diccionario Historico de las Artes de Pesca Nacionales (1795), but his flies were dyed feathers (coloured hackles) tied on weighted (leaded) double hooks.

Theophilus South (real name Edward Chitty) did come up with a most simple fly that may have been cast in his The Fly Fisher’s Text Book (1841):

HERRING FRY

The fly is a white feather, projecting considerably over the hook, and it resembles the herring fry, of which both mackerel and Pollock are very fond.

James Wilson gave a fly, which could be used today for catching sea trout, in The Rod and the Gun (1844).

SEA TROUT FLY

… a singularly successful fly for sea-trout, large or small, may be made with silver tinsel enwrapping the whole body from head to heel … the wings, of a narrow elongated form, composed either of pure white or pale grey [hackles], or a mixture of both.

Try that on a big hook or tandem mount instead of a GRIZZLE SUNK LURE (see here (#litres_trial_promo)).

TWO FLIES FOR STRIPED BASS

None is more killing than an orange body with peacock and bluejay wings and black hackle legs.

Frank Forester (real name Henry William Herbert), Fish and Fishing, 1859.

The best fly [for striped bass] is that with the scarlet ibis and white feathers mixed.

R. B. Roosevelt, Game Fishes of the North, 1862.

But note: these may have been fished in rivers when the striped bass made their spawning runs.

In conclusion, over 100 years ago it was questionable whether it was necessary to have specific fly patterns for saltwater fishing (and black bass fishing), certainly in and around Florida. James Henshall (Camping and Cruising in Florida, 1884) advised that:

Bright feathers are easily procured in Florida from the numerous gayplumaged birds, so that the angler will be at no loss for materials for tying his flies. Two flies I remember as being particularly taking: one with upper wing of white ibis and lower wings of the mottled feather of chuck-will’s-widow, another with top wings of white egret and lower ones of pink curlew [roseate spoonbill].

Not today, they aren’t!

North Country Spiders or Soft-Hackled Wet Flies (#ulink_d9edcb79-1fe9-555f-aae4-3244498b8eca)

Old flies often seem to fade from popularity not so much because they lose their effectiveness as because they are replaced by more fashionable new flies, whether the new flies have proven more effective or not.

Paul Schullery, American Fly Fishing: a History, 1987.

This category of fly evolved at least 200 years ago on the rivers of northern England and southern Scotland. They were first catalogued by T. E. Pritt (Yorkshire Wet Flies, 1885), later by Harfield H. Edmonds and Norman N. Lee (Brook and River Trouting, 1916) and by W. S. Roger Fogg (The Art of the Wet Fly, 1979). That these ancient flies travel well is borne out by three books about them by the American writer Sylvester Nemes: The Soft-Hackled Fly (1975), The Soft-Hackled Fly Addict (1981) and Two Centuries of Soft-hackled Flies (2004).

These are very simple flies to tie, many having a body of only tying thread (use a round thread – not flat thread, nor floss silk); if using real silk thread (e.g. Pearsall’s Gossamer), wax the thread with solid tying wax. As one name for these flies indicates, the hackle is a soft one, usually from a game-bird, sometimes a hen barnyard fowl. Game-bird hackles usually have a very thick stalk, so they are tied in by the feather tip (stroke the hackle fibres back to expose the tip). The hackle should be sparse: two or two-and-a-half turns at most.

Hooks: wet fly, sizes 13–4, unless otherwise stated.

They are still very effective flies to use, in both rivers and lakes anywhere in the world, when trout, char, grayling or other fish are feeding on flies or emergers at, or close to the water surface. There are many recorded instances when these have out-fished more precise imitations of what the fish were eating. In rivers fish ‘dead-drift’, in lakes cast out and tweak or work back slowly.

SIMPLE HACKLE PATTERNS

In these the body consists of tying thread, wound from behind the hook eye to the end of the hook shank and then back to behind the hook eye in touching turns. Sometimes there is a rib, or a rib is optional.

GOLDEN PLOVER & ORANGE

Thread: Orange.

Hackle: Golden plover upperwing covert, with gold markings.

ORANGE PARTRIDGE

Thread: Orange (traditionally a plain orange, though recently hot orange has been used).

Rib: Fine gold wire (optional).

Hackle: Brown speckled feather from the neck of a grey (English) partridge.

Probably the most famous of these flies, the ORANGE PARTRIDGE is a great catcher of fish and has even been known to catch salmon!

GREENWELL’S GLORY (SPIDER VERSION)

Thread: Yellow waxed with dark cobbler’s wax.

Rib: Fine gold wire.

Hackle: Furnace or coch-y-bonddu hen (black centred with natural red sides).

The original GREENWELL’S GLORY, tied by James Wright for Canon William Greenwell in May 1854, had an upright wing of hen blackbird secondary feather fibres. It fishes better without the wing.

The Greenwell’s Glory also makes a splendid dry fly for fishing during hatches of olive duns. Add tails (a few fibres from a cock furnace hackle) and use several turns of cock hackle instead of the 2½ turns of hen hackle.

The following five patterns are summer patterns, for when light-coloured flies are on the water.