This perhaps is the best of all flies; it is certainly the one which will
kill earliest and latest in the year; and though I would hardly go as far
as a friend of mine, who boasts of never fishing with anything else, I
believe it will, from March to October, take more trout, and possibly
more grayling, than any other fly. Its basis is the woodcock wing; red
hackle legs, which should be long and pale; and a thin mohair body, of
different shades of red-brown, from a dark claret to a pale sandy. It
may thus, tied of different sizes, do duty for half-a-dozen of the
commonest flies; for the early claret (red-brown of Ronalds; a Nemoura,
according to him), which is the first spring-fly; for the red spinner, or
perfect form of the March-brown ephemera; for the soldier, the
soft-winged reddish beetle which haunts the umbelliferous flowers, and
being as soft in spirit as in flesh, perpetually falls into the water,
and comes to grief therein; and last but not least, for the true
caperers, or whole tribe of Phryganidæ, of which a sketch was given just
now. As a copy of them, the body should be of a pale red brown, all but
sandy (but never snuff-coloured, as shop-girls often tie it), and its
best hour is always in the evening. It kills well when fish are gorged
with their morning meal of green drakes; and after the green drake is
off, it is almost the only fly at which large trout care to look; a fact
not to be wondered at when one considers that nearly two hundred species
of English Phryganidæ have been already described, and that at least half
of them are of the fawn-tint of the caperer. Under the title of
flame-brown, cinnamon, or red-hackle and rail’s wing, a similar fly kills
well in Ireland, and in Scotland also; and is sometimes the best
sea-trout fly which can be laid on the water. Let this suffice for the
caperer.
2. Of the March-brown ephemera there is little to be said, save to
notice Ronalds’ and Ephemera’s excellent description, and Ephemera’s good
hint of fishing with more than one March-brown at once, viz., with a
sandy-bodied male, and a greenish-bodied female. The fly is a worthy
fly, and being easily imitated, gives great sport, in number rather than
in size; for when the March-brown is out, the two or three pound fish are
seldom on the move, preferring leeches, tom-toddies, and caddis-bait in
the nether deeps, to slim ephemeræ at the top; and if you should (as you
may) get hold of a big fish on the fly, ‘you’d best hit him in again,’ as
we say in Wessex; for he will be, like the Ancient Mariner—
‘Long, and lank, and brown,
As is the ribbed sea-sand.’
3. The ‘governor.’—In most sandy banks, and dry poor lawns, will be
found numberless burrows of ground bees who have a great trick of
tumbling into the water. Perhaps, like the honey bee, they are thirsty
souls, and must needs go down to the river and drink; perhaps, like the
honey bee, they rise into the air with some difficulty, and so in
crossing a stream are apt to strike the further bank, and fall in. Be
that as it may, an imitation of these little ground bees is a deadly fly
the whole year round; and if worked within six inches of the shore, will
sometimes fill a basket when there is not a fly on the water or a fish
rising. There are those who never put up a cast of flies without one;
and those, too, who have killed large salmon on him in the north of
Scotland, when the streams are low.
His tie is simple enough. A pale partridge or woodcock wing, short red
hackle legs, a peacock-herl body, and a tail—on which too much artistic
skill can hardly be expended—of yellow floss silk, and gold twist or
tinsel. The orange-tailed governors ‘of ye shops,’ as the old drug-books
would say, are all ‘havers;’ for the proper colour is a honey yellow.
The mystery of this all-conquering tail seems to be, that it represents
the yellow pollen, or ‘bee bread’ in the thighs or abdomen of the bee;
whereof the bright colour, and perhaps the strong musky flavour, makes
him an attractive and savoury morsel. Be that as it may, there is no
better rule for a chalk stream than this—when you don’t know what to fish
with, try the governor.