The following list of flies is taken from Alfred Ronalds’s “Fly-Fisher’s Entomology.” This work has been selected because its descriptions are imitations of real flies, and not of traditional or conventional nondescripts, which, although the delight of professional dressers, might be safely worshipped without breaking the commandment, since they are not the “likeness of any thing in the heaven above, nor in the earth beneath, nor in the waters under the earth.”
Some alterations have been made for the purpose of facilitating the reader in his choice of materials, and the feathers indicated are, in most cases, those of our own birds, which may be easily procured, and are quite as suitable as the foreign ones given by Ronalds. Mohair is the best material for the bodies of trout-flies, and though others are sometimes named as being an easier method, the experienced amateur will prefer mohair, with which he will produce the same effect, without any of the objections to which all other materials are liable; and by a judicious mixture, any shade of color may be obtained.
Ronalds’s work being descriptive of English flies only, it has been deemed advisable to substitute their American prototypes in all cases where they are known; and although the trout are not perhaps thorough entomologists, the scientific fisherman will always prefer to use a fly which exists in the waters he frequents, to an English resemblance, restricted perhaps to a confined locality some thousands of miles away. As a general rule, there is no doubt that the best imitations of the fly the fish are taking will be the most successful; yet there are exceptions, of which the ibis fly is a glaring instance. It is also desirable at times to vary the sizes of flies, and to make the imitations larger than the living flies—when, for instance, the water is rough or thick; but these variations are not of absolute importance.
No. 1. The Blue Dun.
This fly is the earliest American ephemera, and may be found on warm days in February. In March it is abundant. It lives three or four days, and then becomes the red spinner.
Imitation.
Body.—Mouse-colored mohair, spun very thinly on yellow silk.
Tail.—Two fibres of gray mallard.
Wings.—From a quill-feather of the robin’s wing. The third or fourth feather with a tinge of reddish brown at the extremity of the fibre.
Legs.—Two or three turns of a blue or ginger dun hackle. One side of the hackle may be stripped off for the ephemeridæ.