I 
February, 1923 
I 
SOME TROUT AND BASS 
LURES 
T HE artificial fly of tradition, with 
wings of feathers, body of wool 
or silk, and hackle legs, does not hold 
its field to itself, as it did formerly. 
Experimentation has brought out new, 
more telling effects. Either the fish gets 
more educated, or the angler more ex¬ 
acting. Change is rife in the fly-fishing- 
world as in the world about us. Ma¬ 
terials, ignored or despised at one time, 
are rapidly coming into use. 
I suppose every angler has felt this 
influence, and some have tried to work 
out new results under its effects. This 
may serve as an explanation, if not an 
excuse, for writing a description of 
lures somewhat novel, which I have 
worked out and found successful. 
The floating or dry fly is so much in 
use now that it is worth while to try to 
get artificials that are constant floaters. 
Something light for this purpose may be 
used as a foundation for the body that 
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will have flotant quality. Among suit¬ 
able materials, cork has proved its value, 
but I find balsa wood, which is one-third 
lighter than cork, a good body founda¬ 
tion. It must be well varnished to pre¬ 
serve its flotancy. 
Other materials are such stand-bys as 
silk thread and floss, raffia of all colors 
for body windings, porcupine quills (or 
just quills) for the extension bodies of 
certain kinds of flies, squirrel (red and 
grey) skins and tails, light gut for legs, 
mapleseed leaves for some kinds of 
wings, varnish, dyes, and hooks from 
No. 10 up to No. 18, of as light a wire 
as possible to make the fly float better, 
and some with a long shank, like the 
Chesterton, to accommodate better the 
shape of the artificial. Just how the ma¬ 
terials are to be used will appear in the 
description of the process of making 
each fly. 
I have found a fairly large fluffy ar¬ 
tificial, made from a squirrel’s tail, to 
tickle the fancy of a large trout, when 
other and more orthodox lures were 
refused. This fly is simply and easily 
made. Take a No. 6 or 8 Chesterton 
or other long-shanked hook. Use the 
tail of a freshly-killed squirrel, or soften 
up a dry one by putting it for some 
time in a tight box with a little dish of 
water. With your scissors, cut the tail 
into strips about one-eight of an inch 
wide, beginning preferably at the end 
that joined the body. Lay one end of 
the strip, the end toward which the 
hairs slope, on the shank of the hook 
just above the bend, having the direction 
of the hairs toward the bend, and lash 
it on firmly with two or three turns of 
grey silk thread, and fasten off with a 
hitch. 
Run the thread up nearly to the eye 
of the hook and fasten. Take the sti ip 
of squirrel’s tail and wind it toward the 
eye of the hook; then fasten with two 
half-hitches. If you wish a sort of 
wing, turn back the unwound end of the 
strip of fur, and wind it down firmly 
to the hook, then cut off the fur. 
Make a neat head by winding the silk 
around several times more, and finish 
off by a half-hitch, or better still, by an 
invisible knot. Then touch up head and 
tail with a little good varnish, a step 
to be taken after the tying of any fly is 
complete. If you wish, cut off the ends 
of the long hairs on the bottom side of 
the fly, to make a sort of legs. 
A good variant of this artificial is 
made by winding on a narrow stiip of 
fur (about one-eighth of an inch wide) 
from the squirrel’s body, and then t\ing 
on two turns of a narrow strip taken 
from the tail. When the quantity of 
fur available is small and the number 
of flies to be made correspondingly 
large, this method is especially avail¬ 
able. Flies of this sort may be tied on 
hooks as small as a No. 14, and are 
then attractive to the smaller trout. 
A caterpillar that will float at all 
times is made by using a long-shanked 
hook, about a No. 10, on which force 
a strip of cork or balsa wood about 
three-sixteenths of an inch square and 
half an inch long. First with a hairpin 
or knitting needle or a sufficiently large 
wire, make a hole lengthwise through 
the cork. Then force on the cork, or 
strip of balsa wood, over the eye of the 
hook. 
With a sharp knife or razor blade, 
trim the body material to the proper 
shape and size, making it rather smaller 
than you wish to have the size of the 
body. Take a strip of raffia of the 
proper color, depending upon the variety 
of caterpillar you wish to make, a 
length of silk thread of the proper color, 
and a long hackle feather. Bind on the 
feather and the raffia with the thread, 
then run up the silk on the cork or 
balsa wood body as far as you think 
the feather will wind. First wind the 
raffia over the body, then the body upon 
that, having the fibers stand well out. 
If, as is probably the case, your hackle 
is not long enough to run well up to the 
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eye of the hook, bind on a fresh hackle 
feather, wind the raffia on, follow it 
with the feather, and so on until you 
nearly reach the eye of the hook. Make 
a neat little head with several turns of 
the silk, finish off with a half-hitch or 
an invisible knot, and touch up both 
(Continued on page 82) 
