CHAPTER I_Fishing with Floating Flies

FISHING WITH FLOATING FLIES

FISHING WITH

FLOATING FLIES

SAMUEL G. CAMP

AUTHOR OF "FISHING KITS AND EQUIPMENT,"

"FINE ART OF FISHING," ETC

OUTING

HANDBOOKS

[Illustration]

NEW YORK

OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY

MCMXIII

OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE MATTER OF EQUIPMENT 9

II. THE FLY ROD 22

III. THE REEL, LINE AND FLIES 36

IV. HOW TO CAST THE FLOATING FLY 55

V. WHERE AND WHEN TO USE THE FLOATING FLY 68

VI. HOW TO FISH THE FLOATING FLY 80

VII. HOW TO FISH THE FLOATING FLY, CONTINUED 93

VIII. INSECTS OF THE TROUT STREAM 107

FISHING WITH FLOATING FLIES

CHAPTER I

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.