410 
FOREST AND STREAM 
July, 1918 
THE OLD AND THE NEW ARTIFICIAL FLY 
THE IDEAL FLY FOR TROUT SHOULD HAVE THE*SYMMETRICAL PERFECTION 
OF THE NATURAL FLY AND ITS SHINING IRIDESCENCE OF WING AND BODY 
W E get into serious difficulties at times 
when we abandon a well trodden 
road, the land-marks of which are 
clearly defined, for a byway where the de¬ 
viations are puzzling and not distinctly 
visible. These remarks refer to the aban¬ 
donment to a great extent by anglers, of 
what is now terme.d the old fashioned fly, 
which in their estimation is “down and 
out.” 
All of us are subject to the attraction 
which surrounds a so-called novelty. We 
really do not take time to consider whether 
we are putting our faith on a fad or have 
stumbled upon something, the superiority 
of which over all other forms is undoubted 
and assured. In the floating fly, known as 
Halford’s fly, for he is a leading apostle 
of the new cult, are we really getting much 
of a novelty? As I before stated, in a 
previous article, this new fly of necessity 
•is constructed on the lines of the old, and 
differs from it only from the fact that it 
will float for a limited period. It is, so to 
speak, the fly of the single idea, and as I 
view it, everything that was desirable in 
the old fly has been abandoned, if it stood 
in the way of the float¬ 
ing qualities of the 
new. The ridiculous 
assumption that these 
new flies resemble nat¬ 
ural insects is claimed 
by the votaries, who 
worship at the shrine 
of this new - fangled 
infallibility. Taking 
Henry Halford as the 
great expounder and 
fly-tyer of the new 
school, and judging by 
the artificial floating 
flies he has evolved and 
given to the angler 
with the pretentious 
label attached that 
they represent nature,' renders it a matter 
of the greatest wonderment that any one, 
upon their examination, could for a mo¬ 
ment imagine such to be the case. The 
fact is, the new fly is nothing more or less 
than the old one to which the “oil tip” has 
been applied. It is not a counterpart of it, 
for the qualities which are essential to the 
success of the old fly have to a great ex¬ 
tent been obliterated, in the effort to make 
it represent nature, the failure of which 
has been such a lamentable one that it 
places it in the category of the grotesque. 
W HAT are the facts on the other side 
of the question? It is known that 
from the very early date of the first 
books written upon the subject of angling, 
that the crude and ungainly flies of that pe¬ 
riod, described therein, furnished fairly suc¬ 
cessful sport. We can not imagine that the 
“wool donnes” minutely dilated upon in this 
literature bore any resemblance whatever to 
natural insects, and I regret to state that 
By DR. HARRY GOVE 
this remark is to a great extent applicable 
to the present modern imitations. 
Year after year improvements entered 
into the construction of the flies of these 
early dates until they have developed into 
the beautiful, elegant and natural looking 
lures, tied by the Scotch experts. It is a 
difficult matter to construct flies of greater 
efficiency than these, and in my opinion 
they will more than hold their own against 
the Vampires sold in the shops, which are 
designated as floating flies that represent 
nature. Do not for a moment imagine I 
ignore the idea that a fly should float and 
that in its make-up it should as closely as 
possible resemble a natural insect. Far 
from it; a common sense view of the sub¬ 
ject must lead to the conclusion that it is 
a necessity. That a fly should float and 
resemble a form of animate life is not by 
any means a novel idea. The failure of it 
lies in its practical illustration, the flies 
dressed to fulfil these desiderata are woe¬ 
fully lacking in all the requisites; while 
the writers on this subject elucidated their 
ideas on paper, they could not demonstrate 
‘hem through the medium of their artificial 
imitations, and to the present date they 
have not “delivered the goods.” 
As I before remarked it is the fly of the 
single idea, carried to the point of pinning 
your faith upon a single fly upon a cast. 
From what I know of fishing, and the pe¬ 
culiar idiosyncrasy of the Salmonidce, it 
has nothing to recommend it; that it min¬ 
imizes the chance of success must be ap¬ 
parent. The danger I foresee is that the 
American angler will be led away from 
real facts and place his reliance upon fads, 
and the great fad of all is in the trout fly 
that falsely claims to imitate nature and 
completely ignores the wonderful effect 
upon the nervous organization of the trout 
by the harmony of color. 
If it were possible to construct a cast of 
flies which were perfect counterparts of 
nature would it ensure success? Probably. 
Let us examine a natural fly—note its sym¬ 
metrical perfection, and the smooth and 
shining iridescence of the wings and body. 
Nature as a rule does not clothe insect life 
V 
with colors intensely distinct, but has en¬ 
dowed them with flashing qualities which 
make them a shining object on the surface 
of the stream. Rob them of this quality 
and while they might possess the shape and 
colors of insects, their shimmering beauty 
will have passed away, and they would be¬ 
come an indifferent object to our vision 
from their lack of attractiveness. 
It is impossible to construct a really valu¬ 
able artificial fly, in which this iris-like 
glimmer is not more or less in evidence. 
If there are secrets in the construction of 
flies, this is the leading one of all, and 
there is no getting away from the correct¬ 
ness of the statement I have made. It is 
the magic spell which is irresistibly at¬ 
tractive in the May-flies and imitations of 
the Ephemeridce I construct. Accident im¬ 
parted to me the method of doing this, 
when years of experiment had failed. The 
so-called old fashioned fly can never be 
“hid under a bushel,” as long as its wings 
radiate the luster of the Golden Pheasant 
and the Blue Macaw. It is questionable 
whether color plays the leading part it has 
been supposed to do, provided the shade 
we select emanates 
rays of light. Dyed 
feathers do not pos¬ 
sess this attribute and 
should never be found 
in the cabinet of an 
artistic fly-tyer. 
I am not favorably 
impressed with the 
idea that the appetite 
of the Salmonidce is 
satisfied by objects 
which are selected; .1 
mean that fish exer¬ 
cise what we term se¬ 
lection to any great 
extent. To endow an 
animal of a low grade 
of organization with 
a characteristic which is a prominent and 
distinguishing quality of one of a very 
high degree of extreme nervous sensibil- 
ity, is an argument in which a scientific 
fact is ignored and is not for a moment 
admissible. This has a direct bearing upon 
the theory of exact imitation, and carries 
the idea that the appeal to a fish must be 
made to his selective instinct (for instinct 
it must be if the assertion is correct), for 
behind it we have the fact that the gusta¬ 
tory nerve of a trout is lacking in what we 
term taste. In reality the exact imitation 
theory teaches the fly maker to make an 
appeal to something that has no existence 
except of a visionary character. The lead¬ 
ing appeal to fish cannot be made through 
the medium of his gustatory nerve. The 
leading stimulant in a predatory animal is 
hunger, which is a desire of quantity, not 
of quality. 
Second alone to this, iridescent objects 
are the most powerful incentives of in- 
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 430) 
Flies tied by Dr. Gove, including two of the rarely seen scale-wing flies 
