STREAMCRAFT 



tying of the invisible finishing-knot at the head 

 of the fly. He folds a little strip of stiff paper, 

 cuts a tiny nick at the middle of the fold, and 

 first passing the tying-thread through this hole, 

 then places the hole over the eye of the hook, 

 the paper thus serving as a retractor to hold 

 the hackle and wings back out of the way. 

 Rather neat, isn't it? 



The wings of a standard wet fly are made of a 

 single pair of feathers or strips; they are dressed 

 flat lie close to the body of the fly, extend 

 just to the bend of the hook, and usually they 

 are not spread or flared out from the body, and 

 are set with their concave surfaces together. . 

 Or a single-feather wing, as that from a mallard's 

 breast, may be used with the concave surface 

 looking toward the back of the hook. A fly 

 can be made with wings flat but spread, and in 

 this style used either wet or as a floater (see 

 illustration of Spent Gnat and spinner arti- 

 ficials) . 



A wet fly may sometimes be put together by 

 tying body and hackle before setting the wings, 

 and by making reversed or turned-back wings. 

 Thus you would start it as shown in Fig. 1, 

 catching in the tail and body material. 



Then you lay the butt end of your feather 



(or feathers) to "serve for wings, on the back of 



the hook, turn back to lie alongside the quill 



the lower part of web, and wind over all this 



210 



