dressings, four of which are given here. Three are confusingly called Negriscos (they imitate a dark midge called enaguados), the fourth is one called Bermejo Crudo. Note that we do not know how these flies were tied. Hackles were then solely feathers and may not have been wound round the hook as we today wind hackles. However the last fly has one feather used as ‘a wrapping’, which presumably means that it was wrapped (i.e. wound) as we would wind a hackle, in which case, it seems likely that the others were not wound, but simply tied in. This is also suggested by the last of the four flies, where one feather was tied ‘on top’ of another. Whatever. The following tyings are one person’s interpretation.
NEGRISCOS (FOR JANUARY AND FEBRUARY)
Thread: Grey.
Body: Dark silvery grey silk.
Rib: White silk.
Hackles: Two very dark blue dun.
NEGRISCOS (FOR FEBRUARY AND MARCH)
Thread: Black.
Body: Black (linen) thread.
Hackles: Two extremely dark (almost black) blue dun.
Head: Fawn and white thread.
NEGRISCOS (FOR SUNNY DAYS IN FEBRUARY AND MARCH)
Thread: Black.
Body: Black (linen) thread.
Rib: White thread.
Hackles: Two short barbed negrisco hackles.
Head: Black.
BERMEJO CRUDO (FOR THE SECOND HALF OF MARCH AND APRIL)
Thread: Purple-red.
Body: Tying thread.
Rib: Blue and white thread.
Hackles: ‘It has a light blue dun negrisco [hackle]. Then a very fine textured pardo [hackle] that is not golden yellow; on top of the latter a kingfisher’s [feather]. Then another negrisco [hackle] identical to the first one. As a wrapping [wound hackle?] two turns of a bright vermilion [hackle] from a muladar cock.’
NOTE: Preben gave a footnote to the effect that ‘muladar’ meant dung, and that it was believed that the dung from mule stables gave cocks a very particular shade.
HOW TO TIE A FLY
In a small volume called The Secrets of Angling, by J. D. Esquire (1620), its author John D. Lawson gave us a fly that is of interest.
The head is of black silk or haire, the wings of a feather of a mallart, teele, or pickled hen wing. The body of Crewel according to the moneth for colour, and run about with a black haire: all fastened at the taile, with the thread that fastned the hooke …
This indicates that the first part of the fly to be tied in after the hook had been lashed to the horsehair tippet is the wing. The next contributors would tell us more.
WALTON, BARKER AND COTTON
Izaak Walton (1593–1683) has been called ‘the Father of Angling’, but as a fly-fisher he is disappointing as his classic The Compleat Angler (1653) added little new to what was already on record with regard to fly-tying and fly-fishing. Two Englishmen who did make a major contribution were Thomas Barker, who published Barker’s Delight or the Art of Angling (1651), and Charles Cotton, whose Instructions How to Angle for a Trout or Grayling in a Clear Stream appeared as a supplement to Walton’s fifth edition of 1676. Cotton knew Walton well enough to have built an elaborate stone fishing ‘temple’ (hardly a hut!), called ‘Piscatoribus Sacrum’, in Walton’s honour by the banks of his River Dove. Barker also knew Walton, so it likely that Cotton and Barker also knew each other and discussed their books during the writing.
Barker pointed out that there were two categories of flies when it came to trout fishing.
The first were what he called ‘palmers’; they had a cock hackle wound or palmered down the hook shank. These have almost disappeared save for a group of flies known as Bumbles. They are still tied and used to catch, mainly grayling, in the rivers of that part of England fished by Cotton (Staffordshire and Derbyshire). Two examples are the GRAYLING STEEL BLUE BUMBLE, see here, and GRAYLING WITCH, see here. They have also survived as trout flies in the loughs of Ireland and lochs of Scotland: examples include the GOLDEN-OLIVE BUMBLE and ZULU, see here & also here.
Charles Cotton, in a portrait from the frontis of The Compleat Angler.
The fishing hut, called Piscatoribus Sacrum, was built by Cotton in 1674 for a visit by Izaak Walton. It is on the bank of the River Dove, in England’s Peak District.
The second class of trout fly were winged flies and are still major trout flies today.
Now let us consult Cotton as to how to tie these flies and for some specific examples. It is important to understand that Cotton, like Walton, wrote in a theatrical, lyrical style. He had two actors, one playing the part of the expert fly-fisher (Piscator), the other the novice who has come for instruction (Viator). First of all, Piscator must show Viator what materials can be used to tie flies, and in those days the fly-fisher took a huge bag of silks, fur and feather, some exotic and expensive, to the waterside so that the real fly being eaten by the trout could be imitated.
PISCATOR. And now let me look out my things to make this fly. Boy! Come, give me my dubbing-bag here presently; and now, Sir, since I find you so honest a man, I will make no scruple to lay open my treasure before you.
VIATOR. Did ever any one see the like! What a heap of trumpery is here! Certainly never an angler in Europe has his shop half so well furnished as you have.
Piscator
