Noticing xcviii - classic salmon flies

When I drive, I often listen to NPR. Lately, on two occasions—most recently this evening—I've managed to tune in to the very beginning of what sounds like a fascinating show on This American Life, called "The Feather Heist." It's about a young flautist who stole some very rare and extremely valuable feathers from the British Museum of Natural History in order to sell them to classic fly tyers, so that he could buy himself a golden flute.

In the show, there is a description—rather, a "recipe"—of a fly from the 1840s called the Durham Ranger: "The tail calls for feathers from the Indian crow, which is the red rough fruit crow that's all over South America. The butt requires two turns of black ostrich hurl. The throat has light blue hackle, usually from the cotinga, which is from Central America. The wings have a pair of long jungle cock feathers with double tibbetts on both sides. . . . The cheeks are from a bird called a chatterer. The horns are blue macaw, which is a parrot."

All this despite the fact that an actual salmon couldn't care less about the colors and the subtleties and the details. Nevertheless, back in the Victorian era ornate flies were very popular—and they remain so today, on a level with Civil War reenactments in terms of the effort to be as authentic as possible. The website Fly Tyer is devoted to this art form, as for example in a page called "A Path to Tying Classic Salmon Flies."

In any event, this got me curious about what these flies look like. Here are a few, with recipes:

Leadwing Coachman
Hook: Regular wet-fly hook, sizes 10 to 6.
Thread: Black Flat-waxed Nylon.
Tag: Flat gold tinsel.
Body: Peacock herl.
Throat: Brown wet-fly hackle.
Wing: Mallard wing quills.

Clarke's Caddisfly
Hook: Mustad R43, size 14 or 12.
Thread: Brown Sheer 14/0 or your favorite brand of extra-fine thread.
Wings: Ring-necked pheasant cock church window feather.
Body: Super Fine Dry Fly Dubbing, blue-winged olive.
Legs: Ginger cul de canard.
Antennae: Two barred fibers from a mallard flank feather.
Hackle: Brown saddle hackle.
Head: Black fingernail polish.

Rust Marabare
Hook: Mustad C49S, sizes 18 to 12.
Bead: Bright red.
Thread: Black 8/0 (70 denier).
Tail: Tan grizzly marabou.
Abdomen: Rust Midge Diamond Braid.
Wing case: Natural bustard Thin Skin.
Thorax: Lint Bug Dubbing, or you may substitute
Hare’e Ice Dub or a similar dubbing.

Classic Yellow May
HOOK: Mustad 3399 or your favorite regular wet fly hook, size 6.
THREAD: Yellow 8/0 (70 denier).
TAG: Small gold tinsel.
TAIL: Yellow mallard quill.
BODY: One or two strands of yellow four-strand rayon floss.
RIB: Small gold tinsel.
WINGS: Yellow mallard quill.
HEAD: Black 8/0 (70 denier) thread.

Popping Bug (a warm-water lure)
(This doesn't count as a "classic" lure,
but it's awfully fun!)

I have a friend, Doug, who, last I knew, enjoyed tying flies, as a release from his stressful job as VP of a large furniture company. At one point he gave us a box of hand-tied flies—which we never used, and years later, when I opened the box and looked inside, they had all disintegrated, sadly. Doug does use his flies to fish with—another release from his stressful job. Though I gather that many of those fly tyers whose goal is merely to replicate Victorian authenticity do not actually fish with the products of their labor: they're just for show.

One of these days I'm going to sit down and listen to the entire episode of This American Life. It sounds like a fascinating story.