Puzzle of sorts..

[redietz]

Wonder if there's any record of them ever having fly fished..............

I believe that both the Cree and Seminoles, at least, used feathered hooks to catch fish before Europeans arrived.

[willowhead]

Wow.....see there. i know some tribes used poisons of a sort, to STUN the fish into going temporarily belly up, makin' for easy pickins. i think they got the substance from some berry if i remember right. My paternal grandfather was full blooded Navajo, so i use to study indian culture quite a bit. Het met and married my grandmother (born in Mexico), just after the turn of the century in Arizona. Her father and family had had to flee Mexico when the revolution went down.....my great grandfather was in the Mexican government, and had come over from Spain.

[BobSmith]

This is an interesting thread, sadly though through the individuality of fly tying and fly fishing, I feel there is no real chance nailing down the terms in any defined reason. One problem is the misconceptions that surround many of the different schools. One glaring misconception is the notion that traditional North Country spiders are dressed slim with lightly dubbed bodies and very sparse hackles. If people like Nemes, Edwards, Magee and others had actually done their research they would have found that the above statement is utterly false. There are in fact several schools within what is called North Country; these schools were centred on the different dales villages. In Lunesdale there is a long tradition of dressing the flies with a thorax of peacock herl behind the hackle, something that is not done in Wharfedale. In the village of Hawes at the top of Wensleydale there is a tradition of dressing their spiders with heavily dubbed bodies and fishing them as nymphs. A very well-known Hawes angler was visited by Skues in the late 1800s and is indeed mention in Skues books, having seen the Hawes patterns it is safe to say that Skues got his nymph dressings from the Hawes anglers. What people now recognise as the true North Country spider was in fact born from a Victorian need for standardisation, and as with all things Victorian they took away the various colourations and left us with a drab white canvas.
Pritt whilst being lauded by many has in fact do us a great injustice, his book and flies are taken from a little known earlier work, published in the 1840s. In both these works they have seek to standardise the dressings and disregarded the really interesting patterns that have now disappeared from knowledge and use. Pritt was not a fly tyer and all the instructions and hypothesis in his book is second-hand. Years later Edmonds & Lee again try to standardise the patterns further and in so doing strip another layer off the surface, and try establish a tradition to suit their own agenda, this process is again followed by Nemes, Edwards, Magee and others and so what we have to day in no way follows the truth of the patterns or the style of fishing them.
If I took a Hidy pattern and fished it upstream on the River Ure at Hawes, am I following in the footsteps of the traditional Hawes school or just fishing a Flymph upstream?

[redietz]

If I took a Hidy pattern and fished it upstream on the River Ure at Hawes, am I following in the footsteps of the traditional Hawes school or just fishing a Flymph upstream?

Does it matter?

To the extent that it does matter, the question is one of standardizing terminology, not standardizing flies. It isn't that anglers 150 years ago in Hawes didn't fish heavily dubbed flies; it's that they were fishing what has subsequently been labeled a flymph. As an analogy, not all blues follow a 12 bar chord progression, but if I tell someone in jam a session that the song I'm about to play follows a blues chord progression, they'd still assume a 12 bar form.

I'd say you were following in the footsteps of the traditional Hawes school by fishing a flymph.

[willowhead]

lmao.............that's funny Bob, NOBODY would ever say, "the song i'm about to play follows a blues chord progression".....MAN, that's corney...........ya might say, "blues in F"..........or, "you'll hear it." But not...............lmao. Cat'll know instantly if it's gonna be 12 bars or 16 or whatever..................and if he don't, he got no business on the bandstand. Not to mention if they're "assuming"..............anything..................they be ******' up.
But i think we get your meaning.............

[BobSmith]

Bob they were fishing North Country wet flies! You have mislabelled them Flymphs.
And therein lays the danger of trying to standardise!

[Otter]

Does it really matter all that much ?

There are so many context's in angling that labeling tends to cause a division of anglers rather than providing conventions for naming things. One mans hares ear is a dry fly , to many others its a nymph, and don't forget those that consider it an emerger, whoa, don't forget those that don't tie it with hares ear but rather with hares body fur.

Historical context is a hard thing to nail down as it will be defined by whatever books were written, and if the past is anything like the present then most will be inaccurate, biased , and also in the context of fishing a hundred + years ago will assume that England is the centre of the universe, and that chalkstream's were the universal centre of england. Now that angling is a common pastime of beggar or prince the need for intellectual copyright (i.e. fly fishing snobbery) is obviated.

When we say spiders, the majority of anglers on the planet conceptually have generally the same picture, whether this is right or wrong is unfortunately largely irrelevant. It would be nice to have precise labeling on things to allow for better communication but in a sport where there are a million shades of blue dun how could you possibly do it.

[hankaye]

Howdy All;

I don't know enough to blow ya'll's noses...............when it comes to this stuff

I do recognize the fact that lines are starting to be drawn in the stream.

Based upon the events of not to long ago ...... I for one do NOT want to see that happen again.

I realize that some of us are better at pickin' nits than other. SO?

The basis for this discussion was for OPINIONS we all have them, we all also have something else in common as well.

Let us strive to not allow the one to override the other........

Hows about we all step back and think about something else for a day or two...

Only my observation.....

hank

[redietz]

lmao.............that's funny Bob, NOBODY would ever say, "the song i'm about to play follows a blues chord progression".....MAN, that's corney...........ya might say, "blues in F"..........or, "you'll hear it."

You're right - I'm simpliflying for the non-musicians.

Since most of jams I participate in are bluegrass, however, I'd never say "blues in F". That key don't cut it. I might say "blues in A", or -- for the benefit of the banjo player -- "in the key of two". (That's where he has to capo.)

[willowhead]

i could never relate to the use of a capo.......either a singer aint got no range.......or a player caint play in all the keys.....pretty much the same deal, and could be the same person. i guess there's nothin' wrong with cheatin' if you got no choice on the spur............but that kinna lack of homework will catch up to you sooner or later.........
but hey, long as you havin' fun.....what the heck.....if you tryin' to make a livin'.....now that's a whole other ball game.