220 We I- Fly Fishing 



TABLE III. 



SOME SIMPLY-DRESSED SINGLE-WINGED FLIES. 



This style of fly, my preceptor, Mark Aitken, made 

 me familiar with well over forty years ago. They 

 are nameless flies, known amongst fishermen merely 

 by the description of their various and very simple 

 dressings, which I am naturally familiar with, and 

 the method of dressing which, I found quite recently 

 described in that valuable work, " Blacker's Art of 

 Fly-making," published in London in the year 1855, 

 and headed (at page 3) thus : " An Easy Method to 

 make the Trout Fly." His mode of dressing such 

 flies is almost identical with mine, save that Blacker 

 dressed his fly with two wings, which neither I nor 

 old Mark Aitken ever thought it necessary to do, 

 finding as we did, that flies tied with a single wing, 

 in a bunch, but sparely, and set upright, killed quite 

 as well as the most elaborate flies in any fishing- 

 tackle shop. I shall begin with a few of " Mark's " 

 simple patterns. 



Permit me to say that the " body " (unless I 

 specially name it) will be neither more nor less than 

 the tying silk, used in making the fly itself, and that 

 I for one prefer yellow to any other colour, especially 

 when it is waxed, more or less, with cobbler's wax, 

 for the body of a wet fly. 



