When most people think of fly fishing, it is dry fly-fishing that comes to mind.  Despite the three other methods of fly-fishing, namely wet fly, nymph and streamer fishing, for which no false-casting is necessary, they envision a fly-fisher standing in the stream gracefully false-casting a willowy rod back and forth a couple of times to dry the fly before releasing it to land gently on the water’s surface.

And although many who fish with wet flies and nymphs will maintain that they catch more fish below the surface, dry fly-fishing is the favorite method that they dream of over the long winter months; as it is more visible, in that you can observe the fish rise and take the fly off the water’s surface.

Many take up fly-tying as a winter hobby, not only to pass the time but to remain connected to a sport they love. There is an increased sense of satisfaction gained from tying your own flies, especially using natural fur and feathers, as they had been tied in the past, and catching a fish on a fly you’ve tied yourself. Flies are traditionally constructed according to a pattern, or ‘recipe’ that has been passed down through the years. Tying flies was considered similar to alchemy, with patterns calling for the likes of blue-gray fur from the back of a red squirrel, muskrat dubbing, peacock herl, wood duck flank feathers and fawn-colored fur from the belly of a red fox, not to mention all the colors of rooster feathers and hackle that was required. 

Many Catskill fly-tiers, such as Rube Cross, Harry Darbee, Walt Dette and Art Flick raised their own chickens in order to have a constant supply of prime feathers. In later years, after their passing, Livingston Manor’s Dr. Alan Fried continued selectively breeding some of the roosters and hens raised by Harry, keeping meticulous records and identifying the chickens with leg bands. Others, such as Frank Kuttner and Ed Van Put, also inherited some of the Darbee chickens for their own stock of hackle.

When the first settlers came to our area in the late 1700s and early 1800s, however, dry-fly fishing did not exist, and flies were fished wet, below the surface. Dry fly fishing originated in England in the mid-1880s, and it wasn’t until about 1864, when Thaddeus Norris’s The American Angler’s Book was published, that reference in this country was made to fishing with dry flies, as occurred on the Willowemoc Creek, in which Norris discusses false casting for the purpose of intentionally drying off the fly, stating that he had seen anglers who were successful by “whipping the moisture from their flies, that the stretcher and dropper would fall so lightly, and remain there so long on the surface, that a fish would rise and deliberately take the fly before it sank.”  He describes a friend’s success in fishing in a section of the Willowemoc below a dam in low water where Norris had had no luck, describing the trout as “shy” and refusing every fly he offered them. Then his friend “put on a Grannom for a stretcher and a minute Jenny Spinner for a dropper. His leader was of the finest gut and his flies fresh, and by cracking the moisture from them between each throw, he would lay them so lightly on the glassy surface, that a brace of Trout would take them at almost every cast, and before they sank or were drawn away.”

In England, Frederic M. Halford wrote extensively of the use of dry flies in the 1880s. He studied the aquatic insects that were found in the slow-moving and low-gradient English chalk streams, carefully copying the exact imitation of the natural insects he found, and created, a series of dry flies that matched the shape, size and color of those he studied. Halford’s books,  “Floating Flies and How to Dress Them” (1886) and “Dry-Fly Fishing in Theory and Practice” (1889), were wildly popular in England and abroad, and expanded the reach of dry-fly fishing in this country. 

Theodore Gordon, (1854-1915) often referred to as the Father of American Dry Fly Fishing, grew up fishing the trout streams of his home state in Pennsylvania. By the age of 13, he had studied Thaddeus Norris’s The American Angler’s Book, and learned the rudiments of fly tying, becoming expert in those skills, as well as in fly-fishing. His talents as a fishing journalist were appreciated both in England and in this country and he began corresponding with Frederic Halford around 1890.  That year, Halford sent Gordon forty-eight dry-fly patterns, urging him to try them out on American waters.

To be continued next week…