A FlyFishing History
By Dr. Andrew N. Herd.
A must Read! click here.
his site exists in order to entertain and inform about the history of our sport. It has grown from small beginnings into the largest reference site on the Internet on this specialist subject; as such it is a free resource for everyone to use. Although the material here is copyright and the usual rules apply, in the best spirit of the Internet you are 
welcome to quote short sections from it, as long as you make it clear where the material comes from give a link to this site . That way, people who want to learn more about the subject will be able to follow up on it easily.
If you are interested in ordering a copy of my history of fly fishing, from which the material on this site is derived, click here to e-mail the Medlar Press, The Grange, Ellesmere, Shropshire, England. This book is on sale now; it runs to just under 400 pages; the preface is by John Betts and the foreword is by Fred Buller. Why buy it? Well, it contains a vast amount of material that I simply can't fit in here. Second, there hasn't ever been a comprehensive history of fly fishing published - ever.
There are some very good books on particular periods, countries, or types of fly fishing, but no-one has ever attempted to cover the whole thing before. The Fly is just about to appear in a paperback edition now that the limited is virtually sold out and a second limited edition volume (subtly called The Flies) will contain details of every major fly pattern from medieval times to the 1899.
My collector's edition facsimile of the Treatyse of Fishing with an Angle can be ordered from the same publisher.
he first reference to fly fishing is in Ælian’s Natural History, probably written about 200 A.D. Ælian was born in about A.D. 170 at Praeneste, where he later held a religious post, dying in about A.D. 230. At some point he became a pupil of Pausanias of Caesarea, who taught him rhetoric, and as a good student Ælian also learnt excellent Attic Greek. He later studied history under the patronage of the empress Julia Domna, and moving within her circle would have allowed him to meet not only Galen, but Oppian.
Despite his interest in the exotic, Ælian was not a traveller and he spent the vast 
majority of his life in Rome, which gave him easy access to the libraries he needed; he once boasted that he had never been outside Italy, had never been aboard a ship, and knew nothing of the sea; a statement which I find quite easy to believe having read his works. Ælian put his knowledge of Greek to good use when he wrote, and he drew from a vast range of reference works: his main source has been identified as being Pamphilus of Alexandria; but he also accessed a wealth of other writers including Democritus, Herodotus, Plutarch and Aristophanes.
In the seventeen volume On the Nature of Animals Ælian mixes personal observation with fact, legend and fancy drawn from earlier authors, pouncing on passing ideas like a thirsty man upon flagons of ale, with the result that there is little order in the work. His book intentionally lacked structure and it contains frequent errors many of which Ælian could have eliminated with very little effort, not least his belief that goats could breathe through their ears. However, the book is pure entertainment which is why the author saw no reason why he should not discuss elephants in one breath and dragons in the next. We should be glad of this, because in the course of his frantic rush through all of nature Ælian chanced to write these immortal lines:
I have heard of a Macedonian way of catching fish, and it is this: between Borœa and Thessalonica runs a river called the Astræus, and in it there are fish with speckled skins; what the natives of the country call them you had better ask the Macedonians. These fish feed upon a fly peculiar to the country, which hovers on the river. It is not like the flies found elsewhere, nor does it resemble a wasp in appearance, nor in shape would one justly describe it as a midge or a bee, yet it has something of each of these. In boldness it is like a fly, in size you might call it a midge, it imitates the colour of a wasp, and it hums like a bee. The natives generally call it the Hippouros.
These flies seek their food over the river, but do not escape the observation of the fish swimming below. When then the fish observes a fly on the surface, it swims quietly up, afraid to stir the water above, lest it should scare away its prey; then coming up by its shadow, it opens its mouth gently and gulps down the fly, like a wolf carrying off a sheep from the fold or an eagle a goose from the farmyard; having done this it goes below the rippling water.
Now though the fishermen know this, they do not use these flies at all for bait for fish; for if a man’s hand touch them, they lose their natural colour, their wings wither, and they become unfit food for the fish. For this reason they have nothing to do with them, hating them for their bad character; but they have planned a snare for the fish, and get the better of them by their fisherman’s craft.
They fasten red (crimson red) wool around a hook, and fix onto the wool two feathers which grow 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.
The quote above is taken from Radcliffe's Fishing from the Earliest Times, Murray (1921), and with various alterations it is the one most often reprinted, often without any credit. In his text, Radcliffe tells us that he adapted his translation from Lambert's Angling Literature in England (1881). Prior to this, a Latin translation was available in Gesner's Historia Animalium, printed in 1558, where it lay unread for nearly three centuries until Oliver rediscovered it in 1834. If you want to read an early English translation, it can be found in Westwood and Satchell's Bibliotheca Piscatoria; and finally, there is an excellent modern translation in the Loeb Classical Library Aelian On Animals, which you can read here.
Fly Tying with Biots
written by Jason Akl
Biots are small, sharply-pointed fibers that allow the creative tier to realistically simulate legs or gnarly looking appendages.
One of the most interesting and unique materials to ever grace a fly has to be the biot feather. This one-of-a-kind material is actually a single feather barb from the lead edge of a primary wing feather from a large bird such as a goose or turkey. On the feather shaft biots are hard to tell from one another seeing as they lay flat on top of one another. Biots are small, sharply-pointed fibers that allow the creative tier to realistically simulate legs or gnarly looking appendages on bottom dwelling imitations.
Specific Biot Types
In general, goose biots are the most used by tiers simply due to the fact that they are relatively easy to find, cheap and a good size for most nymph patterns. Turkey biots are the next major type of biot available, and they are relatively larger and stiffer than goose biots, even though both birds are very similar in size. Both these two types of biot feathers take to the dying process very well, allowing tiers to color-match patterns to the respective natural near exact. Biots can also be died in exuberant attractor-type colors that demand a fish's attention. If you have never tried incorporating biots into your favorite fly patterns, goose or turkey biots are great for experimenting. These two types of feathers are relatively large and easy to handle for those not used to handling biots, and biots are not overly brittle, cracking with the first sign of excessive pressure.
Want to know more click here.
What is flyfishing entomology?
Click the pic to go there.
- Entomology is the study of insects. Aquatic insects spend their larval existence on or under water, where they are the major food source for fish. Understanding aquatic insects, and employing artificial flies to imitate them, are several of the many challenges of flyfishing.
When fly tying you need to know what you are trying to imitate this Web Site is a must although it's based on American species, it's the best on the net.
Jim Kenny.