SOME FLY DRESSING 113 



It has proved " great medicine" when the trout are nymph- 

 ing in July, when the little darkish dun is simultaneously 

 coming down on the surface. 



4. LITTLE RED SEDGE. 



It is a good many years since I first dressed the pattern 

 of trout fly which I know by this name, and I should be 

 sorry to say how many trout have succumbed to it in the 

 interval. Although in dressing it I was not consciously 

 copying any other man's pattern, I cannot pretend to any 

 originality in its composition; but, such as it is, I have 

 found it without exception the most killing fly I have used 

 on chalk streams at all times when the upwinged dun was 

 not hatching and in all sorts of places. This is its make-up 

 as evolved experimentally: 



Hook. — No. 1 down-eyed, square bend. 



Tying Silk. — Hot orange waxed with brown wax. 



Body Hackle. — Long, deep red cock, with short fibres, 



tied in at shoulder and carried down to tail. 

 Rib. — Fine gold wire, binding down body hackle. 

 Body. — Darkest hare's ear. 

 Wings. — Landrail wing, bunched and rolled, and tied 



on sloping well back over the tail. 

 Front Hackle. — Like body hackle, but larger, and long 



enough to tie five or six turns in front of wing. 



The modus operandi is as follows: — Having waxed a good 

 length of the silk, one begins winding almost at the eye of 

 the hook and whips closely to the shoulder, leaving ample 

 space on which to tie down the wings and wind the hackle. 

 One then ties in a short-fibred, long, brilliant red hackle, 

 almost blood red, by the root, and, after breaking or cutting 

 off the root, whips to the tail of the fly, securing with the last 

 two or three turns a couple of inches of fine gold wire. 

 Then it is well to drench the silk, where it is on the hook, 

 with celluloid varnish. Next one spins on the dubbing 



15 



