BLACKER'S METHOD 339 



is reduced to the proper size. If there be not enough dubbing 

 on the silk for the whole body you must feed the silk with a 

 fresh supply. If a hackle needs to be tied in, say half-way up, 

 put on only as much dubbing as will reach that spot, or, if 

 need be, pull it off, tie in the hackle, and then feed the silk with 

 more dubbing. When the body is long enough, pull off any 

 refuse dubbing, and tie the silk itself with a couple of half 

 hitches ; then your spare end, above alluded to, comes into 

 play to tie off hackles, tinsel, etc., if it be not frayed if it is not 

 trustworthy, a fresh piece of silk must be used. 



In looking over other works which give directions upon 

 salmon fly-fishing, the first work I take into consideration is 

 Blacker 's Fly Making, Angling, and Dyeing. The flies sold 

 by Blacker were so beautifully tied, and his reputation as a 

 tyer stood so high, that one has a right to expect first-rate 

 directions from such a master ; but I confess that I am disap- 

 pointed in them, and that many of them appear to me not only 

 puzzling but almost impracticable. His " easy way of tying 

 a salmon fly " is first to tie on the wings the reverse way and 

 these are afterwards to be turned and tied down the proper way, 

 a process which, if it be not utterly destructive of the wing, 

 is a needlessly bad one. Then the hackle is to be tied in at the 

 butt with the dubbing and the tinsel, and these are to be worked 

 down to the tail and tied off, and a tail is then to be tied on. 

 Now, in the first place, what is to hide the tie which ties on the 

 tail ? Nothing ; it must be left exposed. Then a hackle tied 

 in at the butt, and worked down by the point, so that the point, 

 which is much the weakest part of the hackle, has the most 

 pulling and chafing. Then this hackle, as well as the dubbing 

 and the tinsel, has to be tied off at the tail, and what is to 

 conceal all that mass of tying off ? Even if the tail is put over 

 the top side of it it can only partially hide it, and a terribly bun- 

 gling affair a tail so tied on would be, while below there is a 

 perfect mass of tying exposed, with nothing at all to hide it. 

 Again, if a shorter hackle is to be used, a turn or two is to be 

 taken ; it is to be fastened off under the wings ; but the 

 hackle must of course go on over the body, and how on 

 earth is a hackle to be tied off over dubbing ? 



I never read such extraordinary directions, and if I had not 

 known Blacker to have been an artist of the very first rank, I 

 should, judging from these directions, have thought him no 

 tyer at all. His directions, however, for tying the gaudy 

 salmon fly, though of the briefest, show that his modus 



