Fishing with Floating Flies

The Matter of Equipment

No man knows, or ever will know, the art of fly-fishing in its entirety, and the present writer is far from claiming omniscience in the matter. Wherefore the fact may well be emphasized that the following pages are not intended for the expert-the seasoned angler skilled in wet, dry, and mid-water fly-fishing-but, rather, for the beginner at the sport of fishing with floating flies and for the novice who may take up fly-fishing with the purpose of ultimately employing the dry fly. At the outset, before going into the details of the dry fly caster's equipment and methods, it would seem necessary to outline certain general phases of the subject with special reference to the enlightenment of the veritable beginner at dry or wet fly fishing, and also with regard to the present status of the sport of dry fly casting practiced upon American waters.

American dry fly fishing may be defined briefly as the art of displaying to the trout a single artificial fly floating upon the surface of the stream in the exact manner of the natural insect. Upon occasions, somewhat rare, indeed, but nevertheless of sufficient frequency to render the fact noteworthy, the American dry fly man casts consciously to a rising and feeding trout-the invariable custom of the English dry fly "purist." On the trout streams of this country, however, the orthodox manner of fishing the floating fly is to fish all the water as when wet fly casting.

In America, owing to the fact that the dry fly angler fishes the water and not the rise, wet and dry fly fishing are far more closely related than is the case in England where the orthodox sportsman stalks the trout, casting exclusively to a rising and feeding fish; from this it may be easily deduced that much of the following discussion on the subject of fishing with floating flies is-in the very nature of things must be-equally applicable to either dry or wet fly fishing.

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 expert with either the dry or the wet fly, employing one or the other as conditions warrant or the occasion renders imperative. Dry fly fishing conditions here and in England are quite dissimilar. The English dry fly specialist follows his sport, in general, upon the gin-clear, quiet chalk streams; slow, placid rivers, preserved waters artificially stocked with brown trout (Salmo fario), and hard-fished by the owners or lessees.

The open season is a long one, extending, taking an average, from early in the spring, about the first of March, to the first of October; and as a consequence of the steady and hard fishing the trout naturally become very shy and sophisticated. Owing to the placidity of the streams the rise of a trout is not difficult to detect, and it seems to pay best to cast to a single trout actually known to be on the rise and feeding rather than to fish all the water on the principle of chuck-and-chance-it.

On the other hand, the American fly-caster largely enjoys his sport upon the trout streams of the woods or wilderness; erratic rivers with current alternating between swift and slow, broken water and smooth, rapid and waterfall, deep pool and shallow riffle. While insect life is not, of course, absent, one can actually follow such a stream for days without observing the rise of a feeding trout, although, as noted above, sometimes a rising fish will, of course, be seen; but seldom will a sufficient number be observed to warrant the angler's relying exclusively upon casting to the rise.

That, indeed, upon the average trout stream of this country, the well-chosen and cleverly cast floating fly has its place has been amply proved by the experience of many anglers. Upon the typical wilderness trout stream, where the fish are both very abundant and totally uneducated, dry fly fishing would be in the nature of a farce-although doubtless successful in view of the fact that the wild trout of such a stream will rise to almost anything chucked almost anyhow. But the average American trout stream may now be classed as a civilized stream, and it is upon such waters that the dry fly has proved its worth by succeeding time and again, under certain conditions, when the wet fly has failed.

The conditions under which the balance of probable success is on the side of the dry fly and against the wet will be more particularly detailed in succeeding chapters; in general, it may be said that the angler who fishes largely upon hard-fished public streams-and that means the great majority of fly-fishermen-where much whipping and wading of the stream by all sorts and conditions of fishermen, good, bad, and indifferent, have rendered the trout wise in their generation, cannot well afford to overlook the possibilities of the floating fly. In such streams the trout only upon rare occasions are afforded the opportunity of seeing a single artificial fly, singularly lifelike in appearance, cocked and floating in a natural way upon the surface-and they will rise to such a fly, if cleverly placed on the water in such a manner as not to arouse suspicion, when a drag of two or more wet flies would only serve to set them down still more obstinately.

Parenthetically, in this connection, in view of the fact that fishing with the dry fly is beyond doubt a very successful method of taking trout when or where other methods may have failed, it should be obvious-to put the matter on a strictly practical basis-that the assumption of an "holier than thou" relation by the dry fly enthusiast toward his brother of the wet fly, on the ground that dry fly fishing is more sportsmanlike, is, to say the least, somewhat illogical. Surely there is little virtue in the resort to and employment of an angling method of proved deadliness under conditions which at the time render the sunken fly harmless-however, we are not here concerned with the ethics of the matter.

But dry fly casting does, indeed, call for a high degree of skill on the part of the angler, both in casting and fishing the fly; additionally, it is imperative that one should be familiar with the best there is in fishing tackle and know much about the habits of the trout and of stream-life in general. In a word, the customary rough-and-ready equipment of the average desultory fly-caster will not do-nor will the ordinary unrefined and casual methods of the average wet fly fisherman.

To succeed with the dry fly, the wet fly fisherman of average skill must study to become still more proficient; the veritable novice at fly fishing for trout should, it would seem, first become fairly adept with the wet fly before going on to the finer-drawn art of dry fly casting. Therefore successful dry fly fishing, as done in America, is predicated upon a thorough knowledge of the craft of the wet fly fisher.

The beginner at fly-fishing must strive to become a first-rate fly-caster-to cast a light and accurate fly, not necessarily a long line. He must study fishing tackle in order to know the tools best suited to the sport under normal conditions, and also under the conditions as he finds them. He must familiarize himself by much actual stream experience with the habits of the trout-learn to read a trout stream as another man might read a book. Moreover, he should cultivate the power of observation and apply it constantly to stream-life in general and the insect life of the stream in particular.

The correct fundamental theory of fly-fishing for trout, with either wet or dry flies, consists in the closest possible simulation, by means of an artificial fly, of the form, coloration, and action of some natural insect then upon the water and upon which the trout are feeding. In England this theory has always been very closely followed by expert fly-fishermen, although over there, as in this country, various fancy flies-not dressed to counterfeit any certain natural fly-have long been in successful use. In England it is the custom of many good fly-fishers who are also skillful fly-tiers, to take with them to the stream a small kit of fly dressing materials and to tie at the stream-side correct imitations of the natural flies then upon the water.

The American fly-fisherman, speaking of the class generally, has never followed the theory of exact imitation of nature in the selection of his trout flies. The larger part of our so-called American trout fly patterns are actually of English origin, and were introduced to the waters of this country through the medium of our first professional fly-tiers, Englishmen and Scotchmen, who, as a matter of course, after coming to this country, continued to dress the patterns with which they were familiar. A certain few of our most famous artificial flies are, indeed, of American invention-flies such as the Seth Green, Reuben Wood, Parmachenee Belle, Imbrie, Barrington, and a few others. Other patterns, so familiar to the fly-fishermen of this country that the fact that they are not of American origin seems very strange, are the coachman, grizzly king, Montreal (Canadian), Cahill, governor, cowdung, silver doctor, Beaverkill-in fact, nearly all of our most killing and widely known patterns.

Regarding the Beaverkill, the name of which is so suggestively American to one at all familiar with the trout streams of the East, it might be well to amplify to some extent, as I am sure many anglers would otherwise take exception to the statement that this fly is of English origin. In "Familiar Flies," by Mary Orvis Marbury-an invaluable book for the fly-fisherman-it is related that an American angler, fishing one day with a cast of three English flies, had particularly good luck with a certain one of the three, and subsequently had the pattern copied by the famous old-time fly-tier, Harry Pritchard. At that time the fly was christened the Beaverkill, it being evident, from the facts as stated, that the English name of the pattern was unknown to the parties.

From the story as told in "Familiar Flies" it may be gathered that even the persons who introduced the "Beaverkill" to American waters in time lost sight of the fact that the fly was originally dressed after an imported model. Personally, I am sure that the Beaverkill is none other than the "silver sedge," a well-known English pattern used frequently in both wet and dry fly fishing, and I am certain that anyone who will take the trouble to compare the two flies side by side will quite agree with me.

As to the basic principle of trout fly-fishing, that of approximating with the utmost fidelity, in the dressing and manipulation of the artificial fly, the shade, shape, and movement of the natural fly, various "schools" have arisen from time to time in advocacy of the greater importance of coloration as compared to size and shape (within reasonable limits, of course), or, again, of the action imparted to the artificial fly as compared with its coloration, size, or form. Into matters of this sort it is needless to enter here. The practical, common-sense point of view would seem to be that neither the proper color nor the correct imitative action of the artificial fly can safely be disregarded by the angler; moreover, the size and the shape of the artificial, varied to suit the occasion, are factors of great importance. By the skilful employment of the modern tackle and methods of the dry fly caster the angler approaches very closely to the ideal principle of his craft-exact imitation of nature.

Recalling a foregoing statement to the effect that the American fly-caster, in general, has not to any serious extent followed the theory of exact imitation of nature; moreover, in view of the fact that practically no artificial flies are to be had dressed in imitation of the native insects common to our trout waters, it should be obvious that the dry fly caster must continue to rely upon artificials of English pattern or manufacture. It is a fact, however, that it is possible, provided your fly book is passably well filled with various patterns, to approximate very closely the appearance of many of the natural insects you will see upon the water.

Furthermore, in view of this state of affairs, it would seem best to avoid at this time any lengthy reference to the entomology of the trout stream, as leading only to confusion worse confounded-there is an instant and imperative need of an authoritative American fly-fishing entomology and of a fairly comprehensive series of artificial flies, dry and wet, dressed in imitation of the native insects common to our streams and upon which our trout are known to feed; until these are available we must adapt the means at hand to the end desired. In this connection, however, it should be noted that it is not strictly necessary for success that the angler at all times use an exact copy of a natural fly-witness the wide employment of various fancy patterns both here and abroad, and the further fact that our native trout are still fortunately rather less discriminating in the matter of rising to the artificial fly than the brown trout of England.

The selection of the proper tackle for dry fly fishing is obviously dependent upon a thorough knowledge of the manner in which it is to be used. Possibly it is unnecessary to say that the dry fly caster invariably works upstream, casting, preferably, upstream and slightly across the current, and that between casts it is generally necessary to dry the fly by several false casts, that is, without allowing the fly to touch the water. To the fly-fisherman of any experience it should be very plain that a first-class fly-rod and a skilled wrist are somewhat essential. Moreover, the dry fly man works largely, although not exclusively, on the still pools and quiet reaches, where only the best of tackle, handled with a more than moderate degree of skill and care, can produce consistent results.

Furthermore, no little skill must be exercised by the angler in order properly to manipulate, or fish, the single "floater" when the cast has been made and the fly is upon the water, it must be allowed to float naturally downstream in the manner of the natural fly under like circumstances. All of which sounds perhaps not so very difficult, but, in practice, the operation really has complications of which the tyro little dreams. It is true that a dry fly possesses a certain degree of buoyancy, but if bunglingly cast and subsequently awkwardly manipulated, the fly is soon "drowned," drawn under water by the weight of a carelessly slack line or from some other cause really, as a rule, preventable by the careful and skilled rod-handler.

Indeed, the difficulties of clean-cut dry fly-casting are such that even an expert caster can do little with a poor equipment; the beginner, therefore, should be extremely careful in the selection of his tackle. The disappointments and difficulties of the game are quite numerous enough without starting in with the very serious handicap of a poorly adapted outfit.

* * *