Volume 11 • Issue 9 • September 2006

Feathers, Fur, and Infatuation

A long, long time ago, a truly unique person was the first to initiate a creation that could serve as a marker for the beginning of fly-fishing.. We do not know this person's name, for the event, according to numerous sources, occurred an estimated 30,000 years ago in southern Europe. Here's what happened. Picture it in your imagination.

Fish provided one of the sources of food for our primitive friend and his community. A good portion of life was spent in trying to find what was necessary to survive. Spearing fish, catching them in nets, even grabbing by hand occasionally were probably the techniques used for supplying a portion of the sustenance necessary for survival. At some point, our fishing ancestor took a bone that could be sharpened and fashioned into a hook. He was the first to tie a feather or two to the hook–maybe a bit of fur, too, would enhance what he had in mind. Then, low and behold, tied at the end of a line, it caught a fish!

That was so far back that it almost seems like recent history when in the year 200 A.D. a gent named Claudius Aelianus, a Roman, was the first to leave a written account of a fly in his book, On the Nature of Animals. The location was in the Astraeus [a river] in Macedonia. Several sources from the book mention that the fish met the description of being a trout. It had "a spotted exterior," according to Claudius, but of special interest is his description of what we recognize as a more advanced version of a fly that the Macedonians used. They ". . . fastened red wool around a hook, and fixed onto the wool two feathers which grew under a cock's wattles, and which in colour are like wax. Their rod is six feet long, and their line is the same length. Then they throw their snare, and the fish, attracted and maddened by the colour, comes straight at it, thinking from the pretty sight to gain a dainty mouthful; when, however, it opens its jaws, it is caught by the hook, and enjoys a bitter repast, a captive." Our Roman friend leaves clues that fishing with a fly was not just used as a method of obtaining food, but that it became somewhat of a sport.

Making another leap in time, some 1,200 years after Claudius Aelianus, we find a woman contributing significantly to what we know about the development of flies in fishing. Dame Juliana Berber, the abbess of a Benedictine nunnery in Sopwell, England, composed an article, "Treatsye of Fysshynge with an Angle," in 1425--important enough for monks to hand-copy for over a period of seventy years until it was published in print. She elaborated on methods for using flies and took note of how types of creatures on and in the water varied with the seasons and applied that observation by recording fly recipes for each month of the year that would be most appropriate. All of her works were incorporated in her book, The Book of St. Albains. Here are recipes for spring and summer months that could be pretty well duplicated today. It might be fun to tie a few and try them.

March	The Dun Fly: the body of dun wool and the wings of the partridge. Another Dun Fly: the body of black wool; the wings of the blackest drake, and the jay under the wing and under the tail.
April	The Stone Fly: the body of black wool, and yellow under the wing and under the tail, and the wings, of the drake. In the beginning of May a good fly: the body of reddened wool and lapped about with black silk; the wings, of the drake and the red capon's hackle.
May	The Yellow Fly: the body of yellow wool; the wings of red cock's hackle and of the drake dyed yellow. The Black Leaper: the body of black wool and lapped about with the herl of the peacock's tail; and the wings of the red capon with a blue head.
June	The June Cut: the body of black wool, and a yellow stripe along either side; the wings, of buzzard, bound on with hemp that has been treated with tanbark. The Manure Fly: the body of dusky wool, the wings of the blackest feathers of the wild drake. The Tandy Fly at St. William's Day: the body of tandy wool; and the wings the opposite, either against the other, of the whitest breast feathers of the wild drake.
July	The Wasp Fly: the body of black wool and lapped about with yellow thread; the wings of the buzzard. The Shell Fly at St. Thomas' Day: the body of green wool and lapped about with the herl of the Peacock's tail; wings, of the buzzard.
August	The Drake Fly: the body of black wool and lapped about with black silk; wings of the breast feathers of the black drake with a black head.

Aside from sharing her knowledge of insects and their imitations, a major aspect of Dame Juliana's contributions was the concept that fly-fishing and tying could be a pleasant pastime not confined to simply putting food on the table.

Izaak Walton's The Complete Angler ties that great literary work to the sport of fly-fishing. Walton himself, according to most scholars, did not fish with flies, but his friend Charles Cotton, with complete approval of Walton, furnished a section to the book that added five chapters covering fly-fishing to all editions after1676. With regard to fly tying, Cotton's contribution contained a listing of sixty-five trout flies. Cotton's writing was in the same fashion that Walton used: a dialogue involving three fictional characters–Piscator, representing Walton (Cotton as a proxy in the five added chapters); Venator, a huntsman; and Aucepts, a fowler. The book in final form covered all aspects of fishing with a lot of philosophy thrown in. The following quotation from one of Cotton's chapters provides insight into how a fly was tied among fly-fishers in England during the 1600's:

Viat [Venator]. You promise comfortably, and I have a great deal of reason to believe everything you say, but I wish the fly were made, that we were at it.

Pisc. That will not be long in doing; and I pray observe then you see first how I hold my hook, and then thus I begin. Look you, here are my first two or three whips about the bare hook; thus I join hook and line; thus put on my wings; thus twice a lap on my dubbing; thus I work it up towards the head; thus I part my wings; thus I twist and lap on my dubbing; thus I nip my superfluous dubbing from my silk; thus fasten; thus trim and adjust my fly; and there's my fly made. And now how do you like it!

Viat. In earnest, admirably well; and it perfectly resembles a fly, but we about London make the bodies of our flies much bigger and longer, so long as even the very beard of the hook.

Cotton was known for his sparsely tied flies as the above dialogue suggests. Most interestingly, these few lines indicate that flies apparently were tied without the benefit of a vise in those times..

Fly tying did not change much for a number of years. The most significant occurrence following The Complete Angler Was Richard Bowlker's The Art of Angling, published in1747, which was devoted mostly to the topic of fly tying though it also provided some additional attention to fishing techniques in using these flies. It was widely used as a reference source.

During the 1800's, fly-fishing in America crept in and began to gradually adapt to a new environment with flies taking advantage of the creative impetus that fly tying offers. That is not to say that many of the English flies didn't continued to be retained as classical successes frequently tied in this country.

Obviously, this account doesn't bring us up to the present. A number of important evolutions have taken place since the 1800's–the wide usage of artificial materials, for example–but there are several points that come to the forefront based upon tracing fly tying from its earliest known existence, 30,000 years ago, up to the late 1800's that will suffice for this writing: (1) Fly tying arose from man's creative instincts reaching back to primitive times; (2) In it's earliest state, it unfolded as an activity that could bring forth food, but it could also be a pleasurable yet challenging pastime; (3) It connected man with nature and served as an impetus for close observation of fish and all of the creatures that attracted fish; (4) Natural materials were envisioned in various combinations and used to imitate common living animal inhabitants of aquatic areas, (5) The emergence of fly tying was essential for the sport of fly-fishing even to exist, for it would seem a non sequitur for anything but a fly rod and a good cast to place any object other than a nicely tied fly upon the water. We owe a note of honor and recognition to that ancient man who first tied a some feathers and a bit of hair to a bone sharpened hook.

Now, dear reader, use some ingenuity and go tie your own creation!

[Editor's note: Most of the information contained in this article was found on the Internet in numerous sources that contained the same bits and pieces of information, none of which restricted use of the material by copyright.]

–M.A.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Maps, Entry Points, Honey Holes, and Flies

TheAugust meeting was presided overby "Doc" Harrison in the absence of both our president and vice-president, who were far afield on fishing expeditions. Short committee reports were presented, and "Doc" announced several items of noteworthy information: (1) Cabela's has committed $500 per year over a five year period to the Guadalupe Bass Restoration Fund.; (2) The scheduled August 10th meeting of Region J of the Water District would be held in the UGRA meeting room to discuss and form proposals to present to the Texas Legislature. "Doc" encouraged our attendance and participation; (3) The Alamo Council of the Boy Scout masters will be gathering at the Bear Creek Scout Camp for fly-fishing instruction on September16th; (4) Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept.'s Expo will be held in Austin at their headquarters facility on the weekend of October 6^th - 7^th; (5) Ann Miller will tentatively be conducting a fly-fishing certification workshop at Blanco State Park in November.

For our program, Rick Wilson presented a treasure chest of information for fishing on nearby Hill Country rivers. He passed our maps of the Guadalupe and the Llano Rivers with marked locations for entry and descriptions of the surroundings and facilities at all the locations that we might be interested in fishing. He covered each one in detail and answered numerous questions raised by those present, about 20 to 25 in attendance.

Rick also had several fly boxes and displays crammed with beautifully tied flies that he has found effective for the various locations that he fishes .He, being a guide, probably fishes more of the less frequented spots on the rivers than many of us ever imagined existed, or else were not adventurous enough to explore. Rick gave us a program that left us with information that only few others are qualified to offer. Many thanks, good friend.

~~~~~~

From FFF ClubEd. . .

Fishing Alone
Submitted by Daryl Crowley – West Michigan Hacklers

I like fishing alone but it seems I work hard at trying to avoid it. I call all my fishing buddies and make considerable effort at trying to locate a fishing partner for the day's outing. Having a fishing companion certainly has advantages, like conversation in the car to and from the river or sharing coffee on the bank while relaying the hard won information on "what the fish are biting on today: are certainly hallmarks of trout fishing pleasures. There is safety in numbers, too, and as we get older, that begins to take on a real importance. Who can deny that it's always cool to hold up a nice trout for someone to see? Occasionally, you find that everyone else is either busy or lacking in the political capital department with their spouse, and despite all your phone calls and pleading, it's apparent that today you fish alone, or not at all. No problem, fishing alone has its advantages too.

We seem more prone to engage in research and development when we are alone. Maybe we're more comfortable then because no one can see us fail. You can try that latest outrageous fly pattern before you put your reputation on the line in front of a witness. Sometimes you are willing to try new places and you are assured that if they turn out to be major flops, you can cover up the fact that you were stupid enough to go there, and if they turn out to be really good spots, you can cover up the fact that you were ever there at all, at least for a while.

When you fish alone, you can arrive at the river or leave whenever you want. You can take a break when you want. You can go upstream or down or start on way and change your mind; nobody cares. You can fish slower and more methodically when you are alone. After all, you're not engaged in any real or perceived competition. You can spend more time studying a run without the danger of your partner saying, "to heck with this" and making a gravy cast into the middle of the run and pulling out a 20-inch trout right from under your over-scrutinizing nose. No, when you are alone, you can savor the anticipation of each and every cast.

You can fish however you want, meticulously or sloppily, and no one will comment. You can take the time to tie on a new tippet every few minutes, or fish with the same ratty one all day. If you lose a fish by being careless, you can just say you caught it and let it go. Who's going to know? Stretching the truth to enhance the fishing alone experience may be acceptable, but outright lies never are, and you will be discovered eventually. Fishing alone is not a license to compromise basic fly-fishing principals. You can also be selective in what you tell; you may freely convey every nuance of the large trout you caught, but you can completely forget to mention that you fell in the river or broke your rod. That's not lying. That's editing.

Once many years ago while fishing alone, I caught an exceptional brown trout, not a record fish, but a real dandy, one of my best at that time. As I let the fish slide back into the water, I resolved at that moment to never tell anyone about that fish. This would be my personal and secret trophy, one that would be made even greater by not telling anyone about it; or so I thought. For a while it was secret, but I wanted to share it with someone in the worst way. For all the esoteric magic of my secret trophy, it paled by comparison to the pleasure I would have had from telling all my friends about it. Now I find, many years later, that I can't remember much about catching that fish except that he was a dandy–the memory lost for lack of use. Now it wouldn't matter whom I told as it is no longer important and it happened so far in the past that no one would give it a second thought or would just assume it was deranged ranting of an old man about "the good old days." In retrospect, I'm not sure that it's wise to keep the catching of good fish to yourself. You should share the memories of those big fish you catch. It makes them immortal, at least in your own mind.

Fishing alone can be a lot of fun and the prospect of fishing alone is certainly not something that should put you off from enjoying a day on the river. While I enjoy fishing alone, I must confess that I would rather fish with one of my friends. I enjoy their companionship, which is why we are friends in the first place. I like not having to make all the decisions, and when something goes wrong, I have someone to share the blame with. Mostly, fly-fishing is a sport that begs to be shared, and it' more fun to hold up a nice fish for someone else to admire or to admire someone else's fish, than it is to release it into total obscurity. There is a magic in the sharing that goes beyond what can be delivered by a single pair of eyes. Besides, it keeps us honest.

September Meeting: September 21, 2006; 7:00 P.M.; UGRA offices at 125 W. Lehmann Drive (behind the Texas Dept. of Public Safety on South Sidney Baker); Business: Committee Reports, etc.; Program: Fly Tying Instruction. Bring your own vise. Club has some vises and equipment available by reservation. Learn to tie four flies. Hooks and materials to be supplied by instructors. Video projection on large screen. Instructors: Guy Harrison, Rick Wilson, Keith Masters, and Martin Pursch. [Don't forget Fredericksburg's Oktoberfisch coming up on.Oct. 20, 21, 22. Details on their website www.fredericksburgflyfishers.org.]