The Traditional American We...

The first recorded flydresser to recognize the Brook Trout's predilection for "fancy" flies was William J. C. Forster of Milwaukee. He notes in a letter that "In the spring of 1840, I came to the Eastern Townships of Canada, about 12 miles north of what is called Derby Line on the Vermont side and Stanstead on the Canada side. I found the streams full of trout, and there was a Scotchman on the next farm who used Scotch flies and did pretty well with them; but I found that the flies I brought from England did not seem just the thing, so I tried brighter colors. All I had read was Walton's Angler, and that did not help me. I first used different shades of scarlet for the bodies and the brightest red hackles; then I died them scarlet, orange, yellow, and green, and also the wings; but the three best flies that I made were drakes wings made with two feathers, and I think I invented the reversed wings in 1841 -- scarlet body with gold tinsel (they call it Lama [sic] now); scarlet hackle and tail."

How different were these new flies? Below is the sole page of wet flies for trout sold by Ogden Smiths, London, in the 1920's to the British market.

And below is a plate, one of nine wet fly plates, from Ray Bergman's book "Trout" (1938, Penn, NY) of flies tied for American conditions. You will note the brighter colors -- the use of red, yellow, and bright green -- the higher contrast between elements of the fly, and the married wings.

The Elegant Wings of the Wet Fly
The American wet fly in its traditional garb has a wing of primary or secondary feather -- often of duck, turkey, or goose -- frequently ornately married of different colors. An alternative wing material is the flank feathers of duck -- teal, mallard, and wood duck being the most popular. Hair wings were never used. Of the four-hundred and thirty-five wet flies displayed on elegant painted plates in Bergman's "Trout" approximately 70% had quill wings, 28% had flank feather wings, and the remainder were wingless. Of the wingless flies, many were palmered, such as the Zulu and the Black Hackle Red Tag, some were hackled, for example the Orange Fishhawk and the Gray Marlow, and a very few were soft hackles, such as the Grouse Spider. Quill wings were set upright at approximately a thirty to forty-five degree angle from the head (see Victoria Green below) with the convex curve down. Only in the later years, 1950 and beyond, were the wings inverted (see Calder below) so that the convex curve was up and the wing hugged the body.

Continued in Part Two

© 2006 Reed F. Curry