gfen
Active member
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2007
- Messages
- 6,639
Something in the OT forum got me thinking, and I started to poke around a bit on something else, only to turn up the infamous Dame Juliana Berners' name. Well, I already knew the story of The Treatyse of Fysshynge with an Angle, and the like, but something got me started looking about the first flies described.
This is something I really like, I never use wet flies and I can't tie the intricate patterns, but I love to read about them and nothing excites me more than the lost history of flies. And so, we come to the twelve flies of Dame Juliana, of which you get a description but very little else to go on.
And, having read the descriptions, its cryptic to say the least.
While trying to find others' interperations of the designs, I hit across an excellent 1957 Sprots Illustrated article entitled "The Tying of the Flies." While its not perfect, and includes no illustrations, it still gives a very accurate and well researched opinion on what these twelve flies look like and were constructed from.
There's also a few pages on other aspects of historical flies from the earliest published works on them.
Anyways, here's hoping its of use to some of you. Perhaps if I can find the time, I'll begin to work my way through constructing them all with modern materials (there goes the buzzard) give them a test swing next spring.
The Tying of the Flies. SI, 5/57.
This is something I really like, I never use wet flies and I can't tie the intricate patterns, but I love to read about them and nothing excites me more than the lost history of flies. And so, we come to the twelve flies of Dame Juliana, of which you get a description but very little else to go on.
And, having read the descriptions, its cryptic to say the least.
While trying to find others' interperations of the designs, I hit across an excellent 1957 Sprots Illustrated article entitled "The Tying of the Flies." While its not perfect, and includes no illustrations, it still gives a very accurate and well researched opinion on what these twelve flies look like and were constructed from.
There's also a few pages on other aspects of historical flies from the earliest published works on them.
Anyways, here's hoping its of use to some of you. Perhaps if I can find the time, I'll begin to work my way through constructing them all with modern materials (there goes the buzzard) give them a test swing next spring.
The Tying of the Flies. SI, 5/57.
