Dressing Flies.
Cocking may be (I do not say it is) a thing of the past, but what
possibly may not be generally known is the keen interest fly-fishermen
still have in the preservation and continuation of certain varieties of
the old fighting breeds of English game. Many find it adds pleasure to
the delights of catching fish to capture them with flies of their own
making, and several of these (all amateurs) can and do turn out at the
present day better work than has ever before been seen. But to achieve
this the right material must be to hand, and from the start difficulty
will be experienced in procuring hackles of the right colour, texture,
and—most important in the case of chalk-stream fishermen—size. For
frequently the July and August trout is not to be beguiled in the
mid-day heat by anything bigger than a 000 hook, and the barnyard fowl
wears no feathers that will hackle this; its fibres are much too long.
Dyeing is largely resorted to to obtain with less trouble the exact hues
required, but this does not entirely get over the difficulty, as the
commoner red and ginger hackles will not serve as the groundwork for,
say, a pale olive, and the blue, the honey and other light-coloured duns
are just the ones that are most difficult to lay hands on. So it comes
about that to mention blue dun game in the presence of a fly-tier
produces much the same effect as the word “rats” does on any
well-brought-up terrier.
At the present time, if the dun game varieties are wanted the best
localities to search are the West of England, from Cornwall and Devon,
through Wales to Cumberland, a circumstance which it is somewhat
tempting to endeavour to connect with the driving into these parts of
the British, amongst whom, as we know, the Romans introduced cocking,
but this must be left to the antiquarians; probably it is only a
coincidence due either to the presence of many fishing waters in those
districts, or to the fact that in out-of-the-way England old customs
died hard, and the law against cock-fighting was not so stringently
carried out as in the counties more immediately under the eyes of the
lawgivers, whereby the breeds have lasted longer there.
Gervase Markham, who wrote in the early part of the seventeenth century,
had a poor opinion of the duns, but his strictures on their merits as
fighting birds are not upheld by Robert Howlet, himself an author of an
angling book, who writes, in 1807, that as to colour of cocks “there is
nothing in it, for the world affords no better birds for the game than
many of your duns and whites prove.” However, in most lists made out in
order of merit this colour comes at the bottom, which perhaps accounts
for the little space devoted to it in the literature so far consulted. I
quote Mr. Harrison Weir’s description of the breed as far as regards
plumage: “The truest and most rare” (of the duns) “is the blue dun, and
these are sub-divided into light and dark. The hackle of the cock bird
should be of an intense indigo-blue, and very bright, also the back and
the tail-coverts; the wing having a distinct bar; the breast and thighs,
as well as the tail, of a beautiful blue dun colour; the face red, with
a dark rim round the eye, or dark eyelid; comb and wattles a brilliant
vermilion.”
By diligent search specimens of these birds may still be found and
procured, though in most instances only at the expenditure of much
diplomatic skill and suasion, including that which is not allowed at
election times, for if the owner supplies the trade he naturally is
interested in limiting the supply and keeping intact a little “corner”
of his own; if, on the other hand, he is a breeder by family tradition,
money is little likely to induce him to part with his best. Still,
perseverance does wonders, and either by getting sittings of eggs, or by
picking up individual cockerels and pullets at prices such as are asked
from hunt secretaries and treasurers of poultry funds, several
enthusiastic fishermen are just now making a beginning at breeding on
their own account.
It must not be thought that this is a new departure, for within the last
thirty years two poultry shows, one at the Crystal Palace in 1871, and
another at the Westminster Aquarium in 1892, have been held, at which
prizes were offered both for hackles suitable for fly-dressing and for
the birds which yielded them; but at this moment fresh interest seems to
be aroused, more and more men are learning to tie, and thereby induced
to breed, so that it should not be long ere such prizes shall be again
competed for at the big poultry shows, which will by this means attract
a visit from many to whom otherwise a fowl presents no points of
interest except at meal-times.
Many of those engaged in poultry breeding know nothing—have never
heard—of the blue dun game or of the demand for it and the kindred
varieties, though they might do worse than run a pen or two of them,
only bearing in mind that, though at present the demand is not met by
the supply, at no time will it ever be very large or of a size to make
game fowl breeding by itself a profitable commercial undertaking.
Besides shortness of fibre the other peculiar merits of the game hackles
are their brilliancy, hardness, and ability to shoot the water. They are
best obtained from a mature cock in the pink of condition (in cocking
days this would have been the eve of a match), during the last two
months of the year, except in the case of dun hackles, which are blue at
Christmas, but before the autumn moult have golden tints. Of course, now
that paraffin is used by the waterside, hen hackles are by no means to
be despised, indeed, some tiers care little which they use provided they
come off a game bird.
One and not the least advantage of being able to tie his own flies
himself is that it enables the fishermen to judge of the work put into
those he buys, and to put his finger on the exact material that is wrong
when patterns are not copied accurately. This is not infrequently the
case, and a good fly gets a bad name, most undeservedly, in consequence.