Fly names and classes

[Mike Connor]

I can't remember whether I have posted this or something similar here before, so if some of you have seen it please forgive the repetition. There is no way I can keep track of all the stuff I have posted to various places over the years.

Hackled fly ( Wingless wet) enthusiasts have a certain "built-in" advantage over many other fly-anglers, because the flies are such great caricatures, and will often take fish in all sorts of conditions, whereas other flies are highly specialised and are either not very successful, or wont work at all in many circumstances. There are various reasons for this.

There is a great deal of confusion in regard to fly names and classes, especially in older books. Charles Orvis' books, among many others, also used these old "classes" as references, as did Louis Rhead and many other influential American authors;

See here;

http://www.archive.org/details/american ... 00rhearich ( A truly great book in my opinion)

http://www.archive.org/details/fishingw ... 00orvirich

http://www.archive.org/details/favoritefliesthe00marb

Some of these books also contain beautiful and interesting colour plates of flies.

These are the "old" classes of flies. For more info, individual descriptions etc.download this;

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... ng%20flies

get all the editions and you can compare them.

This is the edition edited and annotated by Walbran;

http://www.archive.org/details/fliesang ... 00thearich


This nomenclature was used in many old books, and by a very large number of anglers. Many fly patterns still have names resulting from these old patterns/classes. You have to bear this in mind when trying to decipher some of them, and learning when and how to use them. This nomenclature was also used CONCURRENTLY with the new nomenclature and caused much confusion and many errors.

It should also be noted that the "standard" ways of dressing flies, and their final appearance in shape have changed a great deal over the years.

Some modern "standardised" shapes look nothing at all like the original patterns. One very typical example is artificial wet flies dressed with upright wings. This is now rarely done.

It should be clear from the above book that "Browns" were stoneflies, "Drakes" were mayflies ( Modern "duns"), "Spinners" were gnats and craneflies, and "duns" were sedges ( Caddis).

This clears up a great deal of confusion with regard to many older patterns.

The "early brown" for instance, or "winter brown" a typical spider, North Country wet ( soft-hackle) is a UK stone fly or needle fly, and "Brown" refers to the type of fly, NOT the colour.

In point of fact many of the needle flies look dark steel blue/grey, and were so called because with their wings folded tight, they resembled Spanish needles ( Sewing needles), which looked steel blue because of their temper.

There is a pattern called the "Dark Spanish Needle" for instance, which has a dark translucent mahogany coloured body, and very dark brown/blue/grey wings.

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DARK NEEDLE Perlidae Hook 1 (14 or 16)



WINGS. - Hackled with a brownish feather taken from the hinder part of a Starling´s wing where it joins the body, (there are only about four of these feathers on each side of the bird.) or with a brownish feather from the back of a swift.

BODY. -Orange brown silk, No. 6b.

HEAD. - Magpie herl.

Middle of April to the end of June, and again in September.

(As these brownish Starling feathers are not plentiful, although readily available, I use a dark brown dyed dun Hen´s Hackle if I am tying up a number of these flies. As far as I can tell they catch just about as well as the original, although not as mobile.

The Hen capes I dye for this purpose are a sort of medium ginger honey dun colour before dyeing, and take on a greyish brown sheen when dyed, they are also freak capes however, and may take some time and patience to locate. I have never seen any available commercially. The only other alternative is a normal light brown Hen hackle lightly dyed dark blue dun. Swifts are not obtainable commercially, but you may find a dead one in Summer on the road if you are lucky.

I have been assured that the Starling now common in America, and considered a major pest, is the same bird as the English one, and they should be readily obtainable. This bird is one of the most useful of all for the soft hackle dresser.
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This information clears up a great many controversies and puzzles. One of which is the "standard" downwing tent shaped wings used on many wet fly imitations of duns. When one knows that "Duns" was once the name for "Caddis flies", then the reason for the wing shape becomes clear. At some point, people began copying the old patterns, and using flies which were designed to copy duns, but simply neglected to mention, or simply did not know, that these flies were designed to imitate caddis flies, and NOT mayfly duns as used in modern nomenclature.

This also clears up some other mysteries, like the existence of the "Blue Dun". Quite a few authors puzzled over this, a couple maintaining it did not exist, and others strove in vain to find a mayfly ( ephemeroptera) which matched it. Apart from the difficulties involved in matching artificials to naturals without any other information, they all simply assumed that the appellation "Dun" referred to modern nomenclature. The simple fact is that a "Blue Dun" is a blue grey caddis, and not a mayfly at all!

Although this is the most glaring and most discussed mistake of this nature in "modern" literature, even people like Skues, Halford, Courtney-Williams, and others falling foul of it, ( although Skues did not make the mistake of using any such imitations, he merely mentioned them), there are plenty of other examples where people have simply not known or misinterpreted fly names. This also explains why some standardised "Dun" wing shapes and methods of dressing are completely inappropriate for imitating mayfly duns! And also explains why some authors and dressers ( including Skues, Webster, et al) used UPRIGHT wings on many of their wet flies, and indeed almost exclusively. These are simply better imitations!

This and other mistakes continue to be propagated to this day. This is also of course why many "standard" fly-patterns simply don't work very well at all. This is considerably exacerbated by the number of professional dressers and others who simply dress flies from existing patterns, without any further information, and don't even know what the insects look like! There is no excuse for an amateur angler/fly-dresser making such elementary mistakes.

Very many "fancy" flies, particularly, but not only, many American traditional wets, are wholly based on these standardised wing shapes, which are in fact originally based on a whole set of mistakes.

As far as I am aware, nobody else has ever connected this series of information and events. One or two people who have heard my theories on it have argued quite forcibly, but as yet not with any substance, and in my opinion the facts I have outlined speak for themselves, basically proving the only sensible conclusions.

In many cases nowadays, flies are often completely divorced from actual fishing. This makes it very difficult for many people to learn much about them. A pattern is given, dressed in a certain way, and that was it. No further information is forthcoming. There are tons of books, websites, and various other media absolutely chock full of such fly patterns.

Many people over the years have asked me why various things, most specifically winged wet flies, don't work for them. In order to discern why some things don´t seem to work very well, it is necessary to know how they should work.

In the case of winged wet flies, there is a massive amount of confusion, and hardly anybody knows what they are, or how to dress and fish them properly! Indeed, this actually applies to many wet flies.

All these flies were invented for specific purposes, some of which differ very considerably both in concept and execution, and many of which have since evolved out of all recognition to the originals.

In the literature, the vast majority of which was written by "gentleman" anglers, tackle dealers, and the like, there is much conflicting matter, and many "schools" of thought on various matters. Some of which is illogical, silly, or just plain wrong. Much of it, including a lot of the silly stuff, has been enshrined in tradition, and survives to this day. It is often "applied" to things which then simply don´t work very well, if at all. In order to save ourselves a lot of trouble and frustration, it is necessary to clear some of this away before we start to analyse the whys and wherefores of many flies, methods, and "schools".

Much of the confusion and associated problems with winged wet flies can immediately be cleared out of the way in one fell swoop, simply by considering what the majority were originally designed for.

By far the greater majority of wet flies were originally designed to imitate specific flies, as can easily be seen by reviewing the relevant literature, and also to be fished DEAD DRIFT. The people who invented them went to great pains to imitate body colours and textures, wing shapes, etc. and used the properties of their materials to achieve this as best they could. They were aiming for EXACT IMITATION.

Some were designed to be "GENERAL" imitations, but still mostly to be fished dead drift.

This is the simple reason why a huge number of these flies simply don´t work well using taut line techniques like "swinging" a wet fly!

They were never designed to move much at all! If one uses them in such a manner, they are very rarely successful, if at all. Also, the equipment used to fish them was completely different to the equipment in general use today. So much so, that is is well nigh impossible to fish such flies properly at all with a lot of modern equipment.

Design and function of the fly determines how it must be fished, and what equipment is necessary to do so. While it may be possible to compromise in some ways, in many others it simply is not, and without the right equipment and methods some flies simply wont work very well. Or it will be extremely difficult to use them properly.

Two further points arise here which compound the difficulties of using such flies. Firstly, practically all authors agree that the most likely time to hook a fish is immediately after the fly lands on the water, and secondly, many authors not only agree, but are fanatically insistent, that flies MUST NOT BE MOVED or manipulated.

This tells us that they were relying on the appearance of the fly fooling the fish.

Of course, ABSOLUTELY NO MOVEMENT is quite impossible to achieve with wet flies. As soon as even the slightest drag operates on the line, the materials will move, and often the whole fly. Soft materials will move more when the fly is only moved slightly.

Such movement is however still within the realms of probability for a natural fly. A movement whereby such a fly swims across the stream at a rate of knots most definitely is not! Indeed, very many fish will refuse, or even be badly spooked by flies doing just that.

On occasion, some fish will try to grab the flies anyway, but in actual fact this is quite rare. This is why somebody who is swinging such a wet fly downstream might catch half a dozen fish, but if he had used his flies properly, he might well have caught fifty fish.

There are a few popular "standard" fly styles in use nowadays, but for the vast majority of anglers they are completely divorced from their original functions, and most don´t know those functions anyway, or how to use them correctly.

The following may be useful in deciding which flies to use, when, and how.

The vast majority of wet flies and spiders were dressed in the sizes 14 or 16, with quite a few in size 18 if the feathers were obtainable in this size. If in doubt, go one size smaller. Many of the older experts were of the opinion that the small flies were much more effective, but also complained constantly that feathers in these sizes were often difficult or impossible to obtain. It should also be remembered that the size of the fly is not necessarily directly related to the size of the hook! You may easily dress small flies on large hooks, and vice versa. This is indeed often done, many of the styles used in Scotland and the North of England employ such techniques very successfully, and have become acknowledged "styles" in their own right, as shown here;

This plate is from Skues' "The way of a trout with a fly" available here;

http://www.archive.org/details/wayoftro ... 00skuerich

as is another of his books, "Minor Tactics of the Chalk Stream, and Kindred Studies";

http://www.archive.org/details/minortac ... 00skuerich

which also has a good plate of his wet flies.

TL
MC

[CreationBear]

and were so called because with their wings folded tight, they resembled Spanish needles ( Sewing needles), which looked steel blue because of their temper.

Thanks for the etymology--I'd always wondered about the "Spanish needle" reference (though I am still confused as to why the "dark" SN is lighter in color than the scarlet "light" SN. ) I'll enjoy exploring the links.

[Mike Connor]

You can find some reasonable illustrations here;

http://www.fishingwithstyle.co.uk/northcountry.htm

Dark and light generally refer to the hackle, ( which represents wings ),not the body. Silk also darkens considerably when wet, so the descriptions may not fit "dry" flies.

Stone flies are generally referred to as "needles" in the North of England. Because of their colouring and long thin wings when folded.

here are a couple of the naturals the needle flies are designed to represent;

http://www.galerie-insecte.org/galerie/ ... ulata.html

http://www.commanster.eu/commanster/Ins ... nigra.html

http://zoology.fns.uniba.sk/poznavacka/ ... _fusca.jpg

There are a number of others;

http://www.google.de/search?q=leuctra&h ... 90&bih=862

TL
MC

[CreationBear]

Dark and light generally refer to the hackle,

Speaking of hackle and Plecoptera.... I've always been curious whether the proportions of a spider intended to mimic stoneflies should be different than one that "fishes to" a mayfly hatch--it might be an optical illusion, but stonefly wings seem to be set further back in the thorax than a mayfly's. It would be funny if the primary function of the peacock herl "head" on these flies was just to make the hackle collar start further down the hookshank.

[Mike Connor]

Longer hackle fibres were used on many stoneflies ( needles), and often larger heads. The larger heads were often made by coating a section of the gut with black varnish. (These flies were originally dressed to gut or hair), I am afraid I don't know if the hackle was intentionally dressed further back. Although it seems reasonable.

Various illustrations do not indicate that this was the case however;

http://www.archive.org/stream/brookrive ... 6/mode/2up

Download the book as a PDF;

http://www.archive.org/download/brookri ... morich.pdf

http://www.archive.org/stream/yorkshire ... 3/mode/2up

Download the books as PDF;

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... ut%20flies

http://www.archive.org/details/northcou ... 00pritrich

TL
MC

[CreationBear]

Great links...I'll have to find a rainy weekend this fall and really start to sift through Pritt et al.

[Mike Connor]

I think this might actually be more useful to American anglers;

http://www.archive.org/details/american ... 00rhearich

Although for general pattern information in regard to natural insects this is also useful;

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... entomology

The editions with the highest number of downloads are invariably the best quality. Google scans are generally useless.

Sample plates;

http://www.archive.org/stream/flyfishen ... 0/mode/2up

http://www.archive.org/stream/flyfishen ... 6/mode/2up

these can be cleaned up further using digital enhancement, if desired.

These plates are from this edition;

http://www.archive.org/details/flyfishe ... 00ronarich ( 1883 edition).

TL
MC