Oak Fly

[Kelly L.]

I was in an unusually good mood last night. I tied up some Chernobyl Ants, and they were coming along nicely time wise. The others I've tied lately have been time consuming. No alcohol was consumed during the process, if that is what you wondered!

Thanks Kelly .

Having fun tonight?

[Greenwell]

The Oak Fly, also called "Downlooker", was a very common pattern in the UK and dressings to suggest the natural go back at least as far as Thomas Barker, 1651. Spending a few minutes searching my book shelves, I found any number of patterns by numerous authors, far too many to list here.
Most Oak Fly patterns are winged but there are some are hackled (spider) versions.

This is Turton's dressing from "The Angler's Manual":

34. Hackle - The Oak Fly
In May: Made with yellow silk: wing, partridge's rump feather, without moon; body, yellow silk, ribbed with a strong black horse-hair, light brown down under wing.

The wording and punctuation is directly from Thurton. Hackle is used to denote a hackled rather than a winged artificial; in fact "hackle" was often used as a generic reference to an artificial, especially one without wings. The term "moon" describes the dark crescent shaped marking that is often seen on partridge feathers, specifically on feathers from the lower back.


J.R. Harris' "An Angler's Entomology" has a color plate showing the Oak Fly, Leptis scolopacea. It looks a bit like one of those big stinging flies that seem to always torment me in meadow streams during the summer. It's kind of a heavy bodied insect of an orangey color with distinct dark markings, obviously inspiring the black horse-hair rib.
Interestingly, John Goddard says the following about the natural: "If one refers to many of the very old angling books you will find repeated references to these flies. There are also many old patterns to represent them. Despite this in all the years I have been fishing I have never even come across any in autopsies."

It's at least an attractive pattern that should appeal to the trout!

Regarding the Partridge Classic Spider hook, I have to say I'm also disappointed with them. The round bend is nice but the gap is quite a bit too large in relation to the shank length for my taste; in testing them I felt that I missed a disproportionate number of takes. The wire is too fine, especially for fishing down-stream. I also experienced problems with inconsistent tempering, most being soft in the wire. I spoke with Mark from Partridge hooks about the above and he said that there had been some development issues. It would be nice to see this concept improved upon and a real, traditional, Spider hook offered.

[Old Hat]

So how do you read the "light brown down under wing". An underwing or dubbing in the thorax area or something else?

Also, the Downlooker is the same pattern? I have seen a couple describe it as similar with a different hackle.

[redietz]

So how do you read the "light brown down under wing". An underwing or dubbing in the thorax area or something else?

Also, the Downlooker is the same pattern? I have seen a couple describe it as similar with a different hackle.

It's another name for the same natural, which doesn't necessarily mean it's the same pattern. (Just as a Hendrickson and a Red Quill imitate the same species of insect but are different patterns.)

Williams, in A Dictionary of Trout Flies pretty much says the same thing Greenwell did:

In spite of the fact that most ancient angling authors mention the oak fly as one which is of interest to fisherman, I shall need a lot of convincing that as an article of a trout's diet it is of the least importance. It is a very strong flyer which must seldom get carried on to the water and I have seldom seen one in an autopsy. Nevertheless, for some reason, the artificial pattern appears to be quite attractive to trout from April to June.

He recommended an orange floss body, coch-y-bondhu hackle and a woodcock wing. He didn't include a rib, which seems odd to me.

Bergman palmered it, which is where the fascination comes in for me: why have Americans always copied British imitations of insects that we don't have, modify them and still keep the same name? And more importantly, they still catch fish here, which says something about how important exact imitation is (or isn't.)

The flies we're tying for the current swap sort of fall into the same category.

[Greenwell]

So how do you read the "light brown down under wing". An underwing or dubbing in the thorax area or something else?

Turton’s writing style is very concise, especially his fly patterns. When he calls for “light brown down under wing”, he has just left out “the” between “under” and “wing”. His 86 page book is filled with a good deal of practical information about flies and fishing, but he’s not an overly verbose author and leaves much to the assumption of the reader.

The use of a bit of dubbed fur, or herl, under or just behind the wing was a common practice on flies that were “winged” with a turned hackle. It served at least two purposes; supporting the hackle so it stood proud of the hook, and adding some thickness and density at this point of the body for a more realistic silhouette. The practice goes back at least as far as Turton and most certainly was in use much earlier. If I have a little time I’ll do some checking and see what I can come up with. We would call it a thorax, earlier writers often referred to it as a shoulder. You have it correct on your fly.

The Oak Fly was also called the Downlooker, Canon Fly, and Ash Fly, and all represent the same insect. Oak Fly patterns often mention one or more of these names, as do the indexes of books of compiled fly patterns. See Lawrie, Bernard, Williams, etc. In 1815 Bainbridge covers almost all bases and lists the pattern as “No. 38. The Oak Fly, Downlooker, or Canon Fly”. Most of the patterns I looked at are winged flies, with Woodcock quill being the most common feather used for this purpose. A.C. Williams has a good illustration of this style in “A Dictionary of Trout Flies”.

The Oak Fly enjoyed many years as a popular but non-standardized pattern and is now something of an anachronism. Andrew Herd, in his recent “Trout Fly Patterns, 1496 – 1916”, lists 18 patterns under Oak Fly. Also 3 under Ash Fly, 5 Canon Fly, and 10 Downlooker, all of which in the index direct the reader to “See also Oak Fly”. But Turton’s Oak Fly isn’t among them! In his book, Turton offers two lists of patterns, the first a “List of Twenty-four approved Flies, Winged and Hackle” (Turton’s spelling and punctuation) the second a “Description of Forty-five approved Varieties of Winged and Hackle Flies” For some reason Herd left the second list, which contains the Oak Fly, out of his book.

It was only comparatively recently that Americans looked to their own insects for inspiration in the development of trout fly patterns while British anglers had been engaged in imitating specific insects for centuries. Ronalds published his milestone “Fly Fishers’ Entomology” in 1836 but, with the exception of Louis Rhead’s rather poor attempt in 1914, there wasn’t a workable American book on trout stream insects until Jenning’s “A Book of Trout Flies” appeared in 1935.

While fly fishing was practiced in other countries, the UK is the cultural home of the sport as we know it and was also the source of most fly fishing literature until the early 20th century. Sharing a common language didn’t hurt either. For many years much of the fly tackle and most of the commercially tied flies sold in the US came from the UK. While companies such as Hardy eventually offered American patterns, for much of this period the flies available to many anglers on this side of the Atlantic were traditional British patterns. Many of the flies in Bergman have their origin in British patterns, even if just in name only, and many of our colloquial names for North American natural flies are derived from British flies, both natural and artificial. For example March Brown, Blue Wing Olive, Green Drake, and Yellow Sally are all traditional British fly names that we have adopted. The British were aware of this and modified traditional flies for American tastes. A case in point, in 1932 English author J. Bernard gives an “American Pattern” for the Oak fly that sports a tail of Golden Pheasant Tippet!

[tie2fish]

Really interesting and informative post, John.

[Old Hat]

Yes, great stuff John. I really appreciate it.

[Mataura mayfly]

Bergman palmered it, which is where the fascination comes in for me: why have Americans always copied British imitations of insects that we don't have, modify them and still keep the same name? And more importantly, they still catch fish here, which says something about how important exact imitation is (or isn't.)

The flies we're tying for the current swap sort of fall into the same category.

Not just in America, we do the same here as well. A Hares Ear nymph here is a different beast to one tied in Britain, or I dare say America.
Before the days of Internet and digital photography, tiers abroad relied on information found in dressing books that often did not contain colour plates and if they did they were colour plates of painted flies that lent themselves to a bit of artistic flare and flamboyance, most were just a materials list. Often these lists had quirks and colloquialism that were peculiar to the language and region of the time the book was written/published.
Or tiers of new patterns were taught by older more established tiers of that pattern, they in turn passed the pattern on to other tiers and like a Chinese whisper..... each time it was passed on slight variations or mistakes were copied or included.

The other "developments" that caused pattern originality to slip was being able to source the exact materials (especially in isolated little old NZ). If the exact materials could not be gathered easily then substitutions were made for materials readily at hand.

[Old Hat]

I was in an unusually good mood last night. I tied up some Chernobyl Ants, and they were coming along nicely time wise. The others I've tied lately have been time consuming. No alcohol was consumed during the process, if that is what you wondered!

Thanks Kelly .

Having fun tonight?

Just noticed your comments in quite a few posts had that certain "cheekiness" to them. I was enjoying it. A few chernobyls will always cure what ever ails ya.

[William Anderson]

What an amazing read. Thanks everyone for bringing this fly and the broader topic to the front. Very interesting.