Fountains of Youth – Classic trout flies that have withstood the test of time … flies that remain “forever young”
by Rusty Dunn
It is a glorious late April day in England in the early 1800s. Daffodils trumpet spring’s arrival, and songbirds sing in harmony. ‘Tis Shakespeare’s proverbial sweet o’ the year.
A gentleman of leisure makes plans for an angling getaway on private waters. He consults books authored by fly fishing’s leading authorities to learn of mayflies that might hatch in late April. One predicts a hatch of Little Dark Watchets. Another says Dark Bloas. Yet another, Jenny Spinners. The next, Little Blacks. The angler is puzzled, because each book says something different about late April hatches. He wonders which, if any, of them is correct. Unknown to the gentleman, however, all of the books are correct. The late April mayflies predicted by the books are all the exact same species!
The names of insects important to anglers was chaotic and unorganized prior to Alfred Ronalds’ landmark book The Fly-Fisher’s Entomology in 1836. Ronalds was the pioneer of insect identification and hatch matching by anglers. He described the book as “the amusement of an amateur“, but it had a huge impact on fly fishing as we know it. Ronalds was the first angling author to use scientific genus and species names for insects. The naming of insects by anglers prior to Ronalds was haphazard at best. Discussing of a hatch of “Bracken Clocks” or “Cow Ladies” was cute, but such names were informal, strongly regional, and inconsistent. Worse still, names of insects and matching flies were often used interchangeably.
Ronalds made order of the chaos. He presented both common names recognized by anglers and taxonomic names established by scientists. Accompanying illustrations depicted both naturals and imitations side by side. Ronalds was an engraver and lithographer by trade, and he personally engraved, printed, and hand-colored the book’s exceptionally beautiful plates of illustrations. Few books in angling history have had
such a lasting impact on how fly fishing is practiced.
Ronalds had the inquiring mind of a naturalist and the experimental skills of a scientist. About half of The Fly-Fisher’s Entomology concerns insects and imitation, but the other half concerns trout behavior. Ronalds built a “trout blind” hanging over a river from which he could secretly observe trout behavior. He discharged shotguns over feeding fish and demonstrated that trout are oblivious to noise above the surface. He understood the physics of light reflection and refraction and was the first author to describe a trout’s view of the world above the surface (“the window”). He emphasized that insect translucency is best imitated when colors of the tying silk show through overlying dubbing. Ronalds was not the first to suggest this, but the method became the norm due to the influence of his book. He doctored natural and unnatural “baits” with various concoctions and deduced that trout have excellent discrimination of edible vs. inedible based on appearance, but very little discrimination based on taste.
The Fly-Fisher’s Entomology describes 47 British insects, one of which is the grannom, a caddisfly that is common throughout Europe and North America. American grannoms (often called “Mother’s Day Caddis”) comprise several species of the genus Brachycentrus. They hatch in late April to early May and last a couple of weeks. Hatches can be intense, as described by author E. Powell in The Country Sportsman:
“A hatch of grannom is a sad affliction, for it is generally so brief that there is little time to think and the trout seem to find it so satisfying that they are difficult to stir for the rest of the day.”
Grannoms vary in size and color, but most are size #16 to #18 with dark gray-brown bodies and green or olive highlights. Egg-laying females carry a bright green egg mass at the tip of their tail. Ronalds’ grannom imitation was the Green Tail fly, which first appeared in J. Chetham’s The Angler’s Vade Mecum (1681). Its distinguishing feature is a tag of bright green at the tail to imitate the egg sack of egg-laying females.
Copyright 2018, Rusty Dunn
Green Tail
| Hook: |
Light wire, #14 – #18 |
| Thread: |
Brown silk |
| Tag: |
Bright green silk floss or dubbing to represent an egg sack |
| Body: |
Fur of a hare’s mask spun on tying silk and left rough |
| Wing: |
Feather of a partridge wing, made very full |
| Hackle: |
Pale ginger hen hackle, tied as a collar to imitate legs |
Green Tail
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Last Updated: April 5, 2018 by Drew Kasel
by Rusty Dunn
It is a glorious late April day in England in the early 1800s. Daffodils trumpet spring’s arrival, and songbirds sing in harmony. ‘Tis Shakespeare’s proverbial sweet o’ the year.
A gentleman of leisure makes plans for an angling getaway on private waters. He consults books authored by fly fishing’s leading authorities to learn of mayflies that might hatch in late April. One predicts a hatch of Little Dark Watchets. Another says Dark Bloas. Yet another, Jenny Spinners. The next, Little Blacks. The angler is puzzled, because each book says something different about late April hatches. He wonders which, if any, of them is correct. Unknown to the gentleman, however, all of the books are correct. The late April mayflies predicted by the books are all the exact same species!
The names of insects important to anglers was chaotic and unorganized prior to Alfred Ronalds’ landmark book The Fly-Fisher’s Entomology in 1836. Ronalds was the pioneer of insect identification and hatch matching by anglers. He described the book as “the amusement of an amateur“, but it had a huge impact on fly fishing as we know it. Ronalds was the first angling author to use scientific genus and species names for insects. The naming of insects by anglers prior to Ronalds was haphazard at best. Discussing of a hatch of “Bracken Clocks” or “Cow Ladies” was cute, but such names were informal, strongly regional, and inconsistent. Worse still, names of insects and matching flies were often used interchangeably.
Ronalds made order of the chaos. He presented both common names recognized by anglers and taxonomic names established by scientists. Accompanying illustrations depicted both naturals and imitations side by side. Ronalds was an engraver and lithographer by trade, and he personally engraved, printed, and hand-colored the book’s exceptionally beautiful plates of illustrations. Few books in angling history have had
such a lasting impact on how fly fishing is practiced.
Ronalds had the inquiring mind of a naturalist and the experimental skills of a scientist. About half of The Fly-Fisher’s Entomology concerns insects and imitation, but the other half concerns trout behavior. Ronalds built a “trout blind” hanging over a river from which he could secretly observe trout behavior. He discharged shotguns over feeding fish and demonstrated that trout are oblivious to noise above the surface. He understood the physics of light reflection and refraction and was the first author to describe a trout’s view of the world above the surface (“the window”). He emphasized that insect translucency is best imitated when colors of the tying silk show through overlying dubbing. Ronalds was not the first to suggest this, but the method became the norm due to the influence of his book. He doctored natural and unnatural “baits” with various concoctions and deduced that trout have excellent discrimination of edible vs. inedible based on appearance, but very little discrimination based on taste.
The Fly-Fisher’s Entomology describes 47 British insects, one of which is the grannom, a caddisfly that is common throughout Europe and North America. American grannoms (often called “Mother’s Day Caddis”) comprise several species of the genus Brachycentrus. They hatch in late April to early May and last a couple of weeks. Hatches can be intense, as described by author E. Powell in The Country Sportsman:
“A hatch of grannom is a sad affliction, for it is generally so brief that there is little time to think and the trout seem to find it so satisfying that they are difficult to stir for the rest of the day.”
Grannoms vary in size and color, but most are size #16 to #18 with dark gray-brown bodies and green or olive highlights. Egg-laying females carry a bright green egg mass at the tip of their tail. Ronalds’ grannom imitation was the Green Tail fly, which first appeared in J. Chetham’s The Angler’s Vade Mecum (1681). Its distinguishing feature is a tag of bright green at the tail to imitate the egg sack of egg-laying females.
Copyright 2018, Rusty Dunn
Green Tail
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