MORE DIRECTIONS 



about the hook with the same silk with which your hook was 

 armed, and having made the silk fast, take the hackle of a 

 cock or capon's neck, or a plover's top, which is usually better : 

 take off the one side of the feather, and then take the hackle, 

 silk, or crewel, gold or silver thread, make these fast at the 

 bent of the hook, that is to say, below your arming ; then you 

 must take the hackle, the silver or gold thread, and work it up 

 to the wings, shifting or still removing your finger, as you turn 

 the silk about the hook : and still looking at every stop or turn, 

 that your gold, or what materials soever you make your fly of, 

 do lie right and neatly, and if you find they do so, then, when 

 you have made the head, make all fast : and then work your 

 hackle up to the head, and make that fast : and then with a 

 needle or pin divide the wing into two, and then with the arming 

 silk whip it about cross-ways betwixt the wings, and then with 

 your thumb you must turn the point of the feather towards the 

 bent of the hook, and then work three or four times about the 

 shank of the hook, and then view the proportion, and if all be 

 neat and to your liking, fasten. 



I confess, no direction can be given to make a man of a 

 dull capacity able to make a fly well : and yet I know, this 

 with a little practice, will help an ingenious Angler in a good 

 degree : but to see a fly made by an artist in that kind, is the 

 best teaching to make it ; and then an ingenious Angler may 

 walk by the river and mark what flies fair on the water that 

 day, and catch one of them, if he see the Trouts leap at a fly 

 of that kind : and then having always hooks ready hung with 

 him, and having a bag also always with him, with bear's hair, or 

 the hair of a brown or sad-coloured heifer, hackles of a cock or 

 a capon, several coloured silk and crewel to make the body of 

 the fly, the feathers of a drake's head, black or brown sheep's 

 wool, or hog's wool, or hair, thread of gold and of silver : silk 

 of several colours, especially sad-coloured, to make the fly's 

 head ; and there be also other coloured feathers both of little 

 birds and of speckled fowl. I say, having those with him in a 

 bag, and trying to make a fly, though he miss at first, yet shall 

 he at last hit it better, even to such a perfection, as none can 

 well teach him ; and if he hit to make his fly right, and have 

 the luck to hit also where there is store of Trouts, a dark day, 

 70 



