A Boy's Workshop: With plans and designs for in-door and out-door work

by Harry Craigin

Now for the wings. Strip off or cut from a hawk’s feather, like [fig. 10], a clipping or two, like [fig. 11], and fold it into a convenient width, and clip the ends square, like [fig. 12]. Lay them on the shank of the hook, butts to the left, points to the right, and fasten with three or four firm wraps, as in [fig. 13]. Now draw the silk under the wing, between them and the hook, to hold them temporarily, and going back to the bend of the hook, wind the dubbing, f, f, f around the hook over and to your right as far as the root of the wings, leaving the hackle out; fasten the dubbing with one or two wraps, taking the silk from under the wing to do the wrapping. Next wind your tinsel d up to the same point and fasten in same way. Now wind your hackle towards the right, twisting the quill as you wind to keep the fibres sticking outwards, and picking out any fibres that get entangled with a dubbing-needle (a needle stuck in a piece of soft pine, like [fig. 14]) and fasten. Now turn back the wings with the points to your left, towards the bend of the hook; fasten back with one or two wraps, passing the silk through an opening between the wings made by the dubbing-needle, to separate them. Finish by making two loose wraps, like [fig. 15]; then draw the silk through them tightly, like [fig. 16]. Touch this fastening with a drop of gum-shellac, and it will not slip or be affected by water. Gum-shellac dissolved in alcohol can be gotten at any drugstore, and should be rather thick. Your fly will now look like [fig. 17].

FIG. 9.

FIG. 10.

Your flies should be rough imitations of any water-flies you see in your tramps, in color and number of parts; outrageously colored flies will be taken by black bass, who seem to bite at anything that has the nearest apologies for body, wings and legs. All game-fish bite readily at a simple hackle wound from bend to shank around any attractively colored body in the form of a caterpillar; a good one for black bass is made with one reddish-brown hackle and two black ones; and a body of peacock’s herl wrapped with green or red silk is a good imitation of a caterpillar common here (in Virginia) in November.