A point was raised on a previous thread - When is a fly not a fly??
My ramblings as a newbie - 99.9% of material I use is synthetic or man made. We all try to "match the hatch" but I've got things (best i can describe them) that have caught fish and they look nothing like a food source (I don't have fish eyes though).
Some of the jelly tail patterns using single tail grubs - fly or lure???? An unweighted shad??
What's the thoughts??
Jezz Dave, delicate subject here.......In my"PERSONAL"opinion those JellyBellys aint a fly, this argument was had a couple of yrs back when someone put a pic of a"fly" called a Spoon Flea, just a small Celta. The IGFA rule say something like"the fly must be a recognized type of Tube,Streamer,Popper,bucktail ect,, the fact a lure can be cast on a flyrod doesnt make it a fly" pretty simple really.. Quinny
BIG can of worms huh!!!Subtle as a brick.
Yeh that's pretty much my view. If I wanted to cast lures I would use a spin stick / baitcaster.
Well it sure has been given workovers, but a fly is a lure, whatever it imitates, and its cast the way it is because its too light to cast on any other outfit. The fly bit is that the upper crust fishers of past times, believed that fly fishing for salmo salar was the ultimate way to go. They did not know that people fished for everything, including salt water fish in BC times, with flies, and they called them flies as well. There were 50 known patterns in Bavaria in the 1300's. The poms didn't invent it, and Walton was a bait fisherman.
The "Spoon Flee" was a small spoon with a hook araldited to it, I've still got it, and have fished it a few times. But there were also Plac Flees which drew a few nasty comments but today are accepted practise. Imitation Jelly Prawns. Spoons were used in the 50's for SWF and were pretty successful. Mind you there are still a few purists around, poor misguided souls, who believe flies are insect imitations.
Actually the birds, Herons, in BC times, and still fish with insects, twigs, seeds and their own feathers and one, the Bronze Back Heron will use as many different baits as there are species of fish in the stream. And it knows which bait draws which fish.Pointless subject, no real answer, each to his own. I've never fished for trout with insect imitations, the only time I did attempt it was with white Deceivers.I'm not the only guy to try that, Ron Pearson caught trout on Deveivers many years ago. Cheers Max
Thanks for your cheery insight there Max.
I watched a Herron at a local park that was pinching pieces of bread from the ducks and placing them in water to lure fish in 8)
I've seen some magnificent frog patterns that are just works of art.
In the end it's very satisfying to deceive a fish into taking an offering that you've made yourself.
Someone in South Africa has a video of a Blue Heron nicking insects off trees, giving them a squeeze and dropping them on the water. All same same fly fishing. Pretty smart birds. I reckon some scruffy human of past times saw this exercise and used it to bring fish to his spear. Lo the beginning of fly fishing. All in the human evolution thing, we all learn along the way. You need my book ????? on the subject. Max
Good work Dave.
Like everyone has stated, it all comes down to a personal opinion, and each person has his/her own degree of 'purism' as max has stated.
As for me............... I go by the opinion that a 'fly' must be tied/attached to the hook and this can be many things but I never have and probably never will use a type of 'lure' as a 'fly'. It comes down to a satisfaction thing I guess as I take pride in the fact that I have created the whole thing myself and haven't used something from another person. hope this makes sense as it is a hard one to comment on fully. maybe more people can provide more comment and it is worth remembering that no-one is right and no-one is wrong.
I tie my own flies, and the "Spoon Flee" the "Plac Flees" and "Kermit" a double tail Mr Twister, green, on a jig hook with a little spoon flasher, like a Spinster, up front, were shots at the puritan system, but as often happens people simply pinch the ideas and come up with commercial versions. Mind you they were practical ideas, and worked. Have you ever seen a spoon fly work in the water, or a Deceiver on the end of a 70 foot roll cast from a 15' fly rod. Or a Kermit being jigged in front of Flathead. Now that is something to see. Causes instant conversion to Flees and long fly rods.
I might point out that a Mr Wackett, in the 40/50's invented a plastic Nymph Body for fly fishing for trout, which means that some past trout types were very foward thinking.
But purism has its limits and, I think, once you get into the practical side of things, and see the results, it's hard to live in a closed shop. You really need to fit a glass shop front to let the light in. Cheers Max
If that is the light then I'll go back inside the 'darkroom'
there are only two schools of thought
1.The historical aspect. Fly rods had no reels and there was no such thing as a weighted fly line, relatively modern invention. Lines were tied to the ends long poles. Casting, if done at all, generally required a favourable breeze behind you to carry the line and the fly. Fly fishing was fishing with a fly. If you were to take your modern spin stick to the creek, pull out 15 feet of line, tie a genuine fly on, well then you might well be fly fishing in the true sense. In other words the focus was the fly and the technique to fish it.
1. The post-modernist definition. If you are using a "fly rod and line" then anything you cast, short of bait, must be a fly. The rod/line make the object a fly. If you attach a clouser to a fly rod its a fly but use a light spin stick and its a jig (work that one out). Likewise using a dry fly on a spin stick is not fly fishing because don't have a fly rod/line. The focus is now the rod/line.
highly topical,, and for individuals who cares.. but competition is another matter..i have had th fortune (good or bad) to have been the setter of rules for a fly comp for saratoga and bass...the only solution i could dream up was a preformed body (ie twister tail) threaded onto a hook was not a fly but if you had to tie on mara wool or some other body and then coat it with silastic then it was ok.. look at some of bob popovic's lipped flies..
this may not be perfect but at the end of the day i had to have some base..
what have other comps done..or any thoughts????
You can get little hardbody poppers for a flyline that are just minature versions of the spin/cast versions. You can even put little bibs on them to get them to duck. Its not a very big step until we start tying on lures, well actually there is the Rio Prawn Fly, and those 1g Yozuri Snapbeans aren't bad "flies" either. I want to know is do trolled flies count (locke style)? Can I whack an 80mm Oargee plow on the 12wt and go trolling for cod and call it fly fishing!
Look its a silly subject because no matter what the things look like, they are lures, because they are used to lure fish to the hook. Just a imitation fish lunch. And fishing is all about lunch. You want lunch, so does the fish, you are supposedly smarter than him, so you use a imitation bit of fish lunch, he grabs it, you then have your lunch. But historically you can push a good case for this "fly" fishing starting with Herons in the dim darks, man just copied birds, by using insects as baits to bring fishg to spears. The rod and line, simple Ned Kelly outfits go back in time so far its not funny, and "baits" were feathers, white, over a red body.
History is sometimes very distorted and the fly fishing history is full of holes so big you can drive Mack trucks through them. VBG, Max
PS the Chinese had very nice reels, and rods with runners in the early part of the last millennium, like 1000AD. Ma Huan painted it in 1100, and it was well established then.
PSS On the competition, if you can cast it in the accepted fly fashion, ie on a standard fly rod and line, its got to be acceptable. And this has been the case for years. And on the spin stick thing, you can cast shooting heads off spin sticks and threaddy reels, and Alver sidecasts so does that make them fly outfits, and how does the double handed system fit into the competitive fly system. In or out??? Questions, questions, more better to go fushin' Max
Like you say there are too many holes Max. If you ask me they should do away with the 'fly fishing' category as its so blurred with other artificials. Nice and simple, have two categories: Artifical (lures, spinnerbaits, flies, etc) or bait.Originally Posted by Maxg
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