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2. This month, also, a PLAIN-HACKLE,' or palmer-fly, made with a rough black body, either of black spaniel's fur, or the whirl of an ostrich feather, and the red hackle of a capon over all, will kill, and, if the weather be right, make very good sport.

3. Also a LESSER HACKLE, with a black body, also silver twist over that, and a red feather over all will fill your pannier, if the month be open, and not bound up in ice and snow, with very good fish; but, in case of a frost and snow, you are to angle only with the smallest gnats, browns, and duns you can make; and with those are only to expect Graylings no bigger than sprats.

4. In this month, upon a whirling-round water, we have a GREAT HACKLE, the body black, and wrapped with a red feather of a capon untrimmed; that is, the whole length of the hackle staring out; (for we sometimes barb the hackle-feather short all over; sometimes barb it only a little, and sometimes barb it close underneath,) leaving the whole length of the feather on the top or back of the fly, which makes it swim better, and, as occasion serves, kills very great fish.

5. We make use, also, in this month, of another GREAT HACKLE, the body black, and ribbed over with goldtwist, and a red feather over all; which also does great execution.2

6. Also a GREAT DUN, made with dun bear's hair; and the wings, of the grey feather of a mallard near unto his tail; which is absolutely the best fly can be

(1) The author is now in the month of February; during which are taken, the Plain Hackle; which we would recommend to be made of black ostrich herl, warped, or tied down, to the dubbing with red silk, and a red cock's hackle over all.

(2) Gold-twist Hackle; the same dubbing, warping, and hackle, with gold twist.

These hackles are taken chiefly from nine to eleven in the morning, and from one to three in the afternoon. They will do for any month in the year, and upon any water.

thrown upon a river this month, and with which an angler shall have admirable sport.

7. We have also this month the GREAT BLUE DUN, the dubbing of the bottom of bear's hair next to the roots, mixt with a little blue camlet; the wings, of the dark grey feather of a mallard.

8. We have also this month a DARK BROWN, the dubbing, of the brown hair off the flank of a brended cow; and the wings, of the grey drake's feather.

And note, that these several hackles, or palmer-flies, are some for one water and one sky, and some for another and according to the change of those, we alter their size and colour. And note also, that both in this and all other months of the year, when you do not certainly know what fly is taken, or cannot see any fish to rise, you are then to put on a small hackle, if the water be clear, or a bigger if something dark, until you have taken one; and, then thrusting your finger through his gills, to pull out his gorge, which being open'd with your knife, you will then discover what fly is taken, and may fit yourself accordingly.'

For the MAKING of a Hackle, or a Palmer-fly, my father Walton has already given you sufficient direction.?

(1) You may also observe, that the fish never rise eagerly and freely at any sort of flie, until that kind come to the water's side; for though I have often, at the first coming-in of some flies, (which I judged they loved best), gotten several of them, yet I could never find that they did much (if at all) value them, until those sorts of flies began to flock to the river's side, and were to be found on the trees and bushes there in great numbers. Venables, p. 15.

When you first come to the river in the morning, with your rod beat upon the bushes or boughs which hang over the waters; and by their falling upon the waters, you will see what sorts of flies are there in greatest numbers; if divers sorts, and equal in number, try them all, and you will quickly find which they most desire. Sometimes they change their flie (but its not very usual) twice or thrice in one day ; but, ordinarily, they seek not for another sort of flie, till they have, for some days, even glutted themselves with a former kind, which is commonly when those flies die and go out. Venables, p. 16.

(2) But, with Mr. Cotton's good leave, he has not; nor has any author that I know of: unless we are to take that for a palmer which Walton has given directions for making, p. 93; which I can never do till I see what I have never yet seen, viz. Caterpillars with wings. Rejecting, therefore, wings as unnatu

MARCH.

For this month you are to use all the same hackles and flies with the other; but you are to make them less.

ral and absurd, supposing you would make the plain hackle or palmer, which are terms of the same import, the method of doing it is as follows, viz.

Hold your hook in a horizontal position, with the shank downwards, and the bent of it between the fore-finger and thumb of your left hand; and, having a fine bristle, and other materials, lying by you, take half a yard of fine red marking silk, well waxed, and with your right hand give it four or five turns about the shank of the hook, inclining the turns to the right hand; when you are near the end of the shank, turn it into such a loop as you are hereafter directed to make for fastening off, and draw it tight, leaving the ends of the silk to hang down at each end of the hook. Having singed the end of your bristle, lay the. same along on the inside of the shank of the hook, as low as the bent, and whip four or five times round; then singeing the other end of the bristle to a fit length, turn it over to the back of the shauk, and, pinching it into a proper form, whip down and fasten off, as before directed; which will bring both ends of the silk into the bent. After you have waxed your silk again, take three or four strands of an ostrich feather; and holding them and the bent of the hook as at first directed, the feathers to your left hand, and the roots in the bent of your hook, with that end of the silk which you just now waxed, whip them three or four times round, and fasten off; then turning the feathers to the right, and twisting them and the silk with your fore-finger and thumb, wind them round the shank of the hook, still supplying the short strands with new ones, as they fail, till you come to the end aud fasten off. When you have so done, clip off the ends of the feathers, and trim the body of the palmer small at the extremities, and full in the middle, and wax both ends of your silk, which are now divided, and lie at either end of the hook.

Lay your work by you; and taking a strong bold hackle with fibres about half an inch long, straighten the stein very carefully, and, holding the small end between the fore-finger and thumb of your left hand, with those of the right stroke the fibres the contrary way to that which they naturally lie; and taking the hook, and holding it as before, lay the point of the hackle into the bent of the hook, with the hollow (which is the palest) side upwards, and whip it very fast to its place in doing whereof, be careful not to tie in many of the fibres ; or if you should chance to do so, pick them out with the point of a very large needle.

When the hackle is thus made fast, the utmost care and nicety is necessary in winding it on; for if you fail in this, your fly is spoiled, and you must begin all again; to prevent which, keeping the hollow or pale side to your left hand, and, as much as possible, the side of the stem down on the dubbing, wind the hackle twice round; and holding fast what you have so wound, pick out the loose Abres which you may have taken in, and make another turn; then lay hold of the hackle with the third and fourth fingers of your left hand, with which you may extend it while you disengage the loose fibres as before.

In this manner proceed till you come to within an eighth of an inch of the end of the shank, where you will find an end of silk hanging; and by which time you will find the fibres at the great end of the hackle something discomposed; clip these off close to the stem, and with the end of your middle finger press the stem close to the hook, while, with the fore-finger of your right hand, you turn the silk into a loop; which, when you have twice put over the end of the shank of the hook, loop and all, your work is safe.

Then wax that end of the silk which you now used, and turn it over as

1. We have, besides, for this month a little Dun, called a WHIRLING DUN,' (though it is not the Whirling Dun, indeed, which is one of the best flies we have ;) and for this, the dubbing must be of the bottom fur of a squirrel's tail; and the wing of the grey feather of a drake.

2. Also a BRIGHT BROWN; the dubbing either of the brown of a spaniel, or that of a red cow's flank, with a grey wing.

before, till you have taken up nearly all that remained of the hook, observing to lay the turns neatly side by side; and, lastly, clip off the ends of the silk. Thus you will have made a bait that will catch Trout of the largest size, in any water in England.

It is true, the method above described will require some variation in the case of gold-and-silver-twist palmers; in the making whereof, the management of the twist is to be considered as another operation; but this variation will suggest itself to every reader, as will also the method of making those flies, contained in the notes, that have hackle under the wings; which else we should have added to Cotton's directions for making a fly, which he gives Viator in the fishing-house. See Chap. V.

(1) Great Whirling Dun. Dub with fox-cub's or squirrel's fur, well mixed with about a sixth part of the finest hog's wool; warp with pale-orange wings, very large, taken from the quill-feather of a ruddy hen; the head to be fastened with ash-colour silk; a red cock's hackle, at full length, may be wrapped under the wings, and a turn or two lower towards the tail.

This is a killing fly, and is to be seen rising out of the hedges in most Trout rivers, late in the evening, seldom before sun-set, and continues on the water till midnight, or after. It is found in most of the warm months; but kills chiefly in a blustering warm evening, from the middle of May to the end of July.

The directions of Mr. Cotton for making flies are to be considered as the very basis and foundation of that art, no author before him having ever treated the subject so copiously and accurately as he has done: what improvements have been made since his time, have been handed about in manuscript lists, but have hardly ever been communicated to the public.

A reverend, worthy, and ingenious friend of mine, a lover of angling, who has practised that and the art of fly-making these thirty years, and is the gentle. man mentioned in the note p. 208, has generously communicated to me the result of his many years experience, in a list of a great number of flies not mentioned by Cotton, with some variations in the manner of making those described in the text. And as to these deviations, it is hoped they will be considered as improvements; since I am authorized to say, that the above gentleman has, in the making of flies, made it a constant rule to follow nature.

Part of this list is, for very obvious reasons, wrought into the form of notes on that of Mr. Cotton; and the rest, with another very valuable Catalogue, composed by a North-country Angler, and communicated to me by the same gentleman, make Nos. II. and III. of the Appendix to this Volume.

The reader will there also find No. IV. a List of Flies formerly published in the Angler's Vade Mecum, so often referred to in the course of this work; and though the flies therein contained are said to be, chiefly, of use in stony, I have tried some of them, especially the duns, in other rivers, and found them to be excellent.

3. Also a WHITISH DUN; made of the roots of camel's hair; and the wings, of the grey feather of a mallard.

4. There is also for this month a fly called the THORNTREE FLY; the dubbing an absolute black, mixt with eight or ten hairs of Isabella-coloured' mohair; the body as little as can be made, and the wings of a bright mallard's feather. An admirable fly, and in great repute amongst us for a killer.

5. There is, besides this, another BLUE DUN; the dubbing of which it is made, being thus to be got. Take a small tooth-comb, and with it comb the neck of a black greyhound, and the down that sticks in the teeth will be the finest blue that ever you saw. The wings of this fly can hardly be too white; and he is taken about the tenth of this month, and lasteth till the four and twentieth.

6. From the tenth of this month also, till towards the end, is taken a little BLACK GNAT. The dubbing, either of the fur of a black water-dog, or the down of a young black water-coot; the wings, of the male of a mallard as white as may be; the body as little as you can possibly make it, and the wings as short as his body.

(1) Isabella, Spezie di colore che partecipa del bianco e del giallo. Altieri's Dictionary. A kind of whitish yellow, or, as some say, buff-colour a little soiled. How it came by this name will appear from the following anecdote, for which I am obliged to a very ingenious and learned lady. The Archduke Albertus, who had married the Infanta Isabella, daughter of Philip the Second, king of Spain, with whom he had the Low Countries in dowry, in the year 1602, having determined to lay siege to Ostend, then in possession of the heretics, his pious princess, who attended him in that expedition, made a vow, that till it was taken she would never change her clothes. Contrary to expectation, as the story says, it was three years before the place was reduced; in which time her Highness's linen had acquired the above-mentioned hue,

(2) Blue, or Violet Dun. Dub with the roots of a fox-cub's tail, and a very little blue-violet worsted; warp with pale yellow silk; wing, of the pale part of a starling's feather. This fly is taken from eight to eleven, and from one to three.

This fly, which is also called the Ash-coloured Dun, and Blue Dun, is produced from a cadis; it is so very small, that the hook, known at the shops by the size No. 9, is full big enough for it, if not too big. The shape of the fly is exactly the same with that of the Green-Drake. So early in the year as February, they will drop on the water before eight in the morning; and Trouts of the largest size, as well as small ones, will rise at them very eagerly.

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