First you must arm your hook, with the line in the inside of it; then
take your Scissers and cut so much of a browne _Malards_ feather as in
your own reason wil make the wings of it, you having with all regard to
the bigness or littleness of your hook, then lay the outmost part of
your feather next to your hook, then the point of your feather next the
shank of your hook; and having so done, whip it three or four times
about the hook with the same Silk, with which your hook was armed, and
having made the Silk fast, take the hackel of a _Cock_ or _Capons_
neck, or a _Plovers_ top, which is usually better; take off the one
side of the feather, and then take the hackel, Silk or Crewel, Gold or
Silver thred, make these fast at the bent of the hook (that is to say,
below your arming), then you must take the hackel, the silver or gold
thred, and work it up to the wings, shifting or stil removing your
fingers as you turn the Silk about the hook: and still looking at every
stop or turne that your gold, or what materials soever you make your
Fly of, do lye right and neatly; and if you find they do so, then when
you have made the head, make all fast, and then work your hackel up to
the head, and make that fast; and then with a needle or pin divide the
wing into two, and then with the arming Silk whip it about crosswayes
betwixt the wings, and then with your thumb you must turn the point of
the feather towards the bent of the hook, and then work three or four
times about the shank of the hook and then view the proportion, and if
all be neat, and to your liking, fasten.
I confess, no direction can be given to make a man of a dull capacity
able to make a flye well; and yet I know, this, with a little practice,
wil help an ingenuous Angler in a good degree; but to see a fly made by
another, is the best teaching to make it, and then an ingenuous Angler
may walk by the River and mark what fly falls on the water that day,
and catch one of them, if he see the _Trouts_ leap at a fly of that
kind, and having alwaies hooks ready hung with him, and having a bag
also, alwaies with him with Bears hair, or the hair of a brown or sad
coloured Heifer, hackels of a Cock or Capon, several coloured Silk and
Crewel to make the body of the fly, the feathers of a Drakes head,
black or brown sheeps wool, or Hogs wool, or hair, thred of Gold, and
of silver; silk of several colours (especially sad coloured to make the
head:) and there be also other colour'd feathers both of birds and of
peckled fowl. I say, having those with him in a bag, and trying to make
a flie, though he miss at first, yet shal he at last hit it better,
even to a perfection which none can well teach him; and if he hit to
make his flie right, and have the luck to hit also where there is store
of _trouts_, and a right wind, he shall catch such store of them, as
will encourage him to grow more and more in love with the Art of
_flie-making_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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