326 A BOOK ON ANGLING 



makers for their flies, and will not go to the trouble of tying 

 or learning to tie, their trout flies. I myself trust to my tackle 

 maker for my general supply of flies, but there are times when 

 the capability of tying a fly will secure one a good day's fishing, 

 and when, but for the power to do so, the angler might see fish 

 rising but be unable to bring them to hook. As it will often 

 happen that the angler will desire to tie a fly by the river side, 

 it will be well that he should learn to tie them by the use of his 

 fingers alone. It may be more difficult at first, but the best 

 tyers (professional tyers) very seldom use anything else, and it 

 is a mere matter of practice. Most amateurs, however, prefer 

 to use a vice to hold the hook, and the vice for trout flies is a 

 small brass table vice, and can, with spring tweezers, also a 

 common requisite, be bought at most respectable tackle 

 makers. The only other implements required are a neat sharp- 

 pointed pair of scissors and a dubbing needle, which last should 

 be a stout needle, fixed in a handle like a bradawl, and with a 

 rounded blunt point, so as not to cut the silk when used to 

 pick out the fibres of dubbing. 



The easiest fly to dress is, of course, the simple palmer. 

 Suppose we take the common red palmer. Choose hook and 

 gut ; lash on the gut with the finest and strongest silk you can 

 procure in the ordinary way, only do not begin quite at the 

 head or end of the hook, leave space enough for two or three 

 turns of the silk bare of lashing in order to finish the fly off at ; 

 having lashed on the gut down towards the bend, take either 

 a piece of crewel or silk, or even two or three (according as you 

 require the substance of the fly to be) peacock's or ostrich 

 herls, break off the weak points, lay the herls together, and 

 tie the ends in a mass on to the bend of the hook (see Plate 

 XXI, Fig. i) ; then select a hackle from the neck of a red 

 cock choose a two-year-old cock in preference to a young one, 

 as his colours will be better and his feathers stronger. As your 

 fly is to be larger or smaller, and you need the fibre to be longer 

 or shorter, so you will choose one nearer to or farther from the 

 head ; having settled this, prepare the hackle by snipping a 

 little bit off on each side near the tip (see Plate XXI, Fig. 10), 

 so that the fibres may not be tied in. Then comes the question 

 whether you desire your palmer to be dressed with hackle all 

 over from head to tail, whether it shall be dressed half-way 

 down, or only at the shoulder of the fly. If the hackle is to go 

 from tail to head, it is tied on at the same time as the herl. If 

 not, then the silk must be warped up from the tail to the 



