FLY-FISHING is poetry; ordinary angling is prose. The latter looks to the catch; the former to skill shown in the capture. There is more sport in hooking and playing one single bass with a light pliant fly-rod, than in dragging in a dozen by mere muscular force. To cast a fly lightly to a chosen spot, to note instantly the swell indicative of a “rise,” to strike at once, but deliberately, to keep your rod bent, your line taut, and your fish in the water long enough to exhaust him, all require judgment, skill and self-control.
But after you have put up your rod for the season, you may still extract pleasure from mending your tackle, putting reel and rod in order, and last, but not least, in making a supply of artificial flies for future fishing.
The articles necessary for making flies are hooks, silk, white wax, silkworm-gut, tinsel-feather fibres—dubbing for the bodies of fur, wool, silk or feathers—hackles for legs, and larger feathers for wings.
First, get a good hook. The good hook is as sharp as a needle, and the barbed end points nearly exactly in a line with the end of the shank; not inside of the “line of pull,” a, b (see fig. 1), lest the point come not in contact with the fish; nor too far out, lest the barb be pulled flatwise against the fish’s mouth, and thus not pierce it readily; nor exactly in the line of pull, for, though in that case it would pierce anything between the point and end of shank, it might slip out without touching the unclosed jaws before the jaw had passed the line of pull. A point like x would be bad, so would one like z; but one like y would be about right. Now take the hook between the forefinger and thumb of your left hand, the shank pointing to your right, as in fig. 2. Say the end of a strong piece of silk, well waxed, on the hook near the bend, and, holding it firmly with your forefinger and thumb, wrap it tightly around the hook nearly to the end of the shank, as in fig. 3. Now coil a piece of silkworm-tug that has been soaked ten or fifteen minutes, and lay it on the hook with the coil to your right, and wrap it with your silk carefully and firmly down to the bend of the hook, cutting off the silkworm-gut a little before you get to the bend, so as to cover it well with the wrap, like fig. 4, at first; it looks like fig. 5 after wrapping. Now take two of the fibres of a peacock’s feather, technically known as peacock’s herl, and a piece of silver or gilt tinsel; lay the tinsel on near the bend, and then, after two wraps of the silk, lay on the two pieces of peacock’s herl, which must be fastened by two or three wraps, as in fig. 6. Now fasten in with a turn or two of the silk the dubbing for the body of the fly. Supposing it to be peacock’s herl, three or four pieces will do, as in fig. 7. Then take a hackle-feather, shaped like fig. 8, from the neck or rump of a gamecock or brown leghorn, and fasten in the point with three wraps of your silk, as in fig. 9.
You have now a hook, a, wrapped with well-waxed silk, b, with a piece of silkworm-gut, c, a piece of tinsel, d, two tail-pieces, e, e, dubbing for body, f, f, f and hackle for legs, g.
Now for the wings. Strip off or cut from a hawk’s feather, like fig. 10, a clipping or two, like fig. 11, and fold it into a convenient width, and clip the ends square, like fig. 12. Lay them on the shank of the hook, butts to the left, points to the right, and fasten with three or four firm wraps, as in fig. 13. Now draw the silk under the wing, between them and the hook, to hold them temporarily, and going back to the bend of the hook, wind the dubbing, f, f, f around the hook over and to your right as far as the root of the wings, leaving the hackle out; fasten the dubbing with one or two wraps, taking the silk from under the wing to do the wrapping. Next wind your tinsel d up to the same point and fasten in same way. Now wind your hackle towards the right, twisting the quill as you wind to keep the fibres sticking outwards, and picking out any fibres that get entangled with a dubbing-needle (a needle stuck in a piece of soft pine, like fig. 14) and fasten. Now turn back the wings with the points to your left, towards the bend of the hook; fasten back with one or two wraps, passing the silk through an opening between the wings made by the dubbing-needle, to separate them. Finish by making two loose wraps, like fig. 15; then draw the silk through them tightly, like fig. 16. Touch this fastening with a drop of gum-shellac, and it will not slip or be affected by water. Gum-shellac dissolved in alcohol can be gotten at any drugstore, and should be rather thick. Your fly will now look like fig. 17.
Your flies should be rough imitations of any water-flies you see in your tramps, in color and number of parts; outrageously colored flies will be taken by black bass, who seem to bite at anything that has the nearest apologies for body, wings and legs. All game-fish bite readily at a simple hackle wound from bend to shank around any attractively colored body in the form of a caterpillar; a good one for black bass is made with one reddish-brown hackle and two black ones; and a body of peacock’s herl wrapped with green or red silk is a good imitation of a caterpillar common here (in Virginia) in November.
Anglers also make something having no counterpart in nature—a winged hackle—by tying the hackle in a winged fly back from the bend to the end of shank—a sort of winged caterpillar. Some fish, no doubt, are affected by it as by a caterpillar; others as by a fly; others just strike out of curiosity, as a kitten plays with a ball. Should you buy your tackle, buy from tackle-makers who angle occasionally themselves. They know more “wrinkles” in their “line” in a day than ordinary makers learn in a year. Some of the best houses in Boston, New York and Baltimore derive their most valuable specialties from the presence of one or more actual anglers in the firms.
Water-flies have generally, like the Mayfly, fig. 18, a body, wings, legs, and tail-like appendages, technically, so you will not be far wrong if you make your fly have those parts, though fish bite at flies with less than these enumerated. For black bass, greens, yellows and reds seem the best colors, though white and black are often used. I like, however, flies that are combinations of bright and sober tints. A favorite fly with me has a body of peacock’s herl brown; wings, yellowish-white feather of chicken-hawk with discolorations on them; legs, a reddish-brown hackle from a gamecock or brown leghorn cock; tail-pieces, two fibres, like wings. I put a red streak in each wing. I call it the “academy,” after a school once under my care.