74

THE GENERAL FLY.

winged flies are the most attractive, and the palmer kills better than the simple hackle. The natural flies are bred larger there, and with more seasonable regularity. We have one consolation, however, that the good general fly extends its attractive qualities to all aquatic coquettes, be they English, Irish, Scotch, or Welsh salmon or salmonidæ. Experience alone, whether it be your own experience or that of others, can make you intimately acquainted with the great local favourites.

ARTIFICIAL FLIES.

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CHAPTER IV.

FLY-DRESSING.

THERE are hundreds of things that cannot be taught easily by means of pen and ink, but which the tongue and hand, reciprocally illustrating each other, can inculcate with very little difficulty. Fly-dressing or fly-making is one of those things. I can scarcely teach it by writing; in a few hours I could explain the whole matter with tongue and hand. However, I must on paper do the best I can, and the artist in wood having lent me some assistance, I fancy I can make a short lecture on fly-making practically comprehensible. The wood-cut on the right-hand side of this page, and marked 1., represents what fly-dressers term "the gut armed,” that is, plainly speaking, the gut and hook whipped on, or tied together. It is the

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first step in fly-dressing, and is thus performed. You take the hook by the bent part, or bend, between the tips of the fore finger and thumb of the left hand, the back part of the hook being

76

ARMING THE GUT.

upwards, and the barbed part downwards, as represented in the little plate before you. You next take a strand of fine silk, neatly waxed, and about a foot or more in length, and you whip it two or three times firmly round the hook at that part of it, nearest your finger nails, or, generally speaking, that part of the shank which is opposite to the pointed and barbed part of the hook. You make the two or three whips in the direction of the end of the shank of the hook, that is, towards your right. Next you take a link of gut coiled for convenience sake, as you see in the cut, and having softened between your lips, and drawn between your teeth to soften and flatten it, a small portion of the freed end of the gut, you place that end against the last whip that you have made with your silk, and you wind your silk over gut and hook up to the end of the shank, or up to that part of it from which you see in the cut a portion of the silk hanging. Wind your silk firmly, and in regular twists, and one winding will be sufficient to fasten safely your hook and gut together. If you only wind your silk as far as you see it wound on the hook before you, a very small portion of the end of the shank will be bare, and leave more room for you to make the head of the fly, and fasten off there with greater delicacy. On the other hand, if you wind your waxed silk to the end of the

SETTING ON THE WINGS.

77

shank, and back again to the spot at which you see the silk depending, you will make a firmer foundation for the setting on of the wings, the time for performing which operation is now arrived.

Here you see the wings merely whipped on; the butts of the fibres fastened down by being whipped over in the direction of the bend of the hook, and the tips of the fibres pointing away to the right. You ask where do you get

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these fibres, and what are they? Simply a small parcel of feathers cut or torn from the stem of some appropriate feather, generally from that of the wing of a small bird, the most common one being the starling. These fibres are generally taken from that side of the feather lying on the inner part of the wing. They are longer, of a lighter colour, and more transparent than the fibres lying on the outer side of the wing, because the latter are more exposed to atmospheric action. Having cut or stripped your fibres in sufficient quantities to form two wings, and having made a little bundle of them, their butt-ends lying evenly, and not projecting the one beyond the other, fasten the butt-ends down on the top of the back of the hook, at the spot indicated in the

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FLY-DRESSING:

THE TAIL.

wood-cut. Three firm whips of your silk will be sufficient to fasten them. Then cut away any of the butt-end fibres that may remain uncovered by the silk. Wind your silk down towards the bend of your hook, stopping at the spot at which you first began the arming of your gut, as described in Figure 1. You are now ready for the placing on of the tail.

Here you see it placed on and whipped over with your silk. The tail is generally made of two fibres of a feather, or of two hairs. tying on the tail use three fibres or three hairs, lest one should

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drop off or be in any way injured whilst you are dressing the other parts of the fly, and afterwards, if have succeeded in fastening on three, you may cut away the worst of them, and allow only two to remain, the generality of angling flies having but two tails, and a few only being pachas of three. These illustrious insects have their appendages particularised in our list of killing flies. You have now, attentive learner, performed three things,-armed your gut, fastened on your fibres for wings, and fixed your tail. You next come to making the body, and attaching it round your hook.