Sound advice

[Mike Connor]

You might prefer this edition, it has most of the original colour plates;

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

http://www.archive.org/stream/americant ... 9/mode/2up

Take note that Rhead, like many other authors, uses Theakston's "Insect Classifications" the names used for the "classes" now mean something else. "Duns" for instance are now Caddis flies! This can cause a lot of confusion, and has indeed had far reaching effects on pattern nomenclature and indeed the shape and "design" of artificial flies to this day.

There are various editions;

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

This edition revised and annotated by Walbran is probably the best;

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

http://www.archive.org/stream/fliesangl ... 1/mode/2up

TL
MC

[Otter]

Walbran's annotations certainly clarified some of the confusion for me.

It's funny when you read some of this stuff that you see references to another, I think to-day that I had three separate tabs open of different books at the same time. The american book, theakston and francis francis.

I am still on a quest to see if there is an Iron Blue solution beyond/behind the standard mole and claret/red/crimson silk bodies that I see on so many dries/ wets to-day - though they take trout during an Iron Blue hatch am not totally convinced that the trout are taking them confidently. This quest sees me latching onto any info in the older books that may provide some useful info or patterns to test and to-day it was francis francis's turn. Iron blue hatches have deteriorated on many rivers so I feel a look back to when they were possibly better seems a reasonable approach - But I ain't in a rush to solve this personal puzzle. - after all I may only get one or two opportunites each season to fish such a hatch and test patterns

[Mike Connor]

Much consists of heavily intertwined threads woven at various times by various people. This makes a fascinating study in its own right, but like many things, you have to spend a lot of time and effort on it. Careful reading and comparisons of many of the older books will clear up many "puzzles" in regard to artificial flies. The unprecedented access and manipulation capabilities we now have in regard to all sorts of information makes it possible to compare and collate all kinds of things, make connections, "educated guesses", and draw often quite inescapable conclusions from the material at our disposal. This is something no authors or anglers of former times were able to do with any notable degree of efficiency, and the vast majority of anglers only had access to local information anyway, and usually severely limited information at that.

Will it help you to catch any more fish? Almost certainly, in the sense that the more information you have the better chance you have of exploiting and capitalising on it. But, at least in regard to artificial flies and their antecedents, it is primarily the pleasure of researching and learning about our angling heritage.

With regard to Iron Blue Duns, you will note that Walbran refers to various insects in that book using both the old and the "New" nomenclature, ( To whit, the "new" nomenclature which refers to the sub-imagines of ephemeropterans as "Duns"),

http://www.archive.org/stream/fliesangl ... h/blue+dun

( Click on the orange "Search tags" at the bottom of the page to find all references).

Other people got ( and still do get!), badly hung up on this, notably Skues and Halford when trying to solve the "puzzle" of the "Blue Dun" which they could not find and could not identify. It is my contention that they and many others who commented on the matter were unable to solve it because the "Blue Dun" is in fact a grey sedge ( Gray Caddis in "American"! ). The "Dun" part of the description refers to the "old" insect class as "formalised" by Theakston, although the descriptions he actually used were in common use and had been for a very long time among anglers. This also explains the stylised "tent" shape of many wet fly wings, which bear no resemblance at all to the shape or behaviour of ephemeropteran ( "Mayfly" American), duns, but are an excellent imitation of sedge ( Caddis ) wings.

This also has ramifications if you are researching patterns to see if they might be any good, or what they are designed to represent. A "Brown Dun", in the "old" nomenclature is a brown caddis fly. A Dun Brown" is a grey stonefly, and there are many other examples. This is of lesser importance to fly-dressers who dress their own flies to match naturals, but it has far reaching effects on commercial dressers and others who "dress to pattern". Unless they are aware of these naming conventions, and few are, those who copy or buy and use the flies to imitate something or other, are using something which wont work very well, because it was simply never designed to imitate what they think it should!

Many modern fly names are based on the "old " nomenclature. The Blue Dun being a case in point.

I can't remember whether I have told you before, but a small Stewart' s Spider dressed with purple silk is usually very effective for Iron Blue hatches, and due to its construction, may be fished in various ways to match the stage of the hatch.

TL
MC

[Mike Connor]

Also explains the wing shape on many traditional American fancy flies, among others, although these often bear little resemblance at all even to the artificials they were developed from, and the majority of these were not good imitations to start with. As I just got some information requests on this I thought I would post some of the results here ( Answer one post and you get caught up again! ). Anyway, here is the fly;

http://hatchesmagazine.com/blogs/Hatche ... 81cowdung/

here are various images of naturals and artificials;

http://www.google.de/search?q=cow+dung+ ... 22&bih=604

Naturals;

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=SCATHO ... 62&bih=805

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

Some info on the natural; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scathophaga_stercoraria

As is obvious from the images, the vast majority of the artificials are extremely poor imitations. It is however quite easy to make a pretty good and effective imitation of this fly, in the right colours and shape, the only surprising thing is that so few people actually did so. There are huge numbers of patterns extant, most of which are more or less useless!

TL
MC

[hankaye]

Mike Connor, Howdy;

Welcome back. As usual you have given a tremendious amount of insight and an enjoyable read, amply laced with links for me (and others I ain't selfish), to download and tuck away for some dull time, rainey day or whenever when I can pull them up and give it a go as far as understanding what all that is contained in them all
Thanks Mike for your time and thoughts;

hank

[Mike Connor]

My pleasure, glad you enjoyed it.

Here is a cropped image of the original High-Resolution macro image here;

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... iatour.jpg



Quite an impressive looking beast!

TL
MC

[hankaye]

Mike Connor, Howdy;

I used to work for a Chief Petty Officer (CPO), that was always on folks about haircuts and beard trims (when we were allowed to have them),
He'd tell the bug to get one too...

Thanks great pic.

hank

PS. Actualy reminds me of the Chief... saw a pic of him on facebook, he's grown a beard and his hair is a bit 'scraggley' as well.

[wsbailey]

Here is a picture of dung flies mating. Bill

[Mike Connor]

Wow! That is a seriously cool link, Otter. That's the first time I've seen a site where you could "turn" the pages of a book, but then I'm relatively naive when it comes to technology .

You might like to try this;

http://webstunning.com/pdf-reader/

This is more "conventional, and a great deal faster;

http://www.tracker-software.com/product/downloads ( PDF-Xchange Viewer )

Also, although it is not about "Wingless wets", quite the opposite in fact, you might like this;

http://www.archive.org/stream/oldfliesi ... 1/mode/2up

http://www.archive.org/details/oldflies ... 00walkrich

Regards and tight lines!

Mike

[tie2fish]

Thank you, Mike.