The History of Fly Fishing - February 2016

The History of Fly Fishing - February 2016

Many credit the 1st recorded use of an artificial fly t othe Roman Claudius Aelianus near the end of the 2nd Century.  However, other than a few fragmented references, little was written on fly fishing until The Treatyse of Fysshynge with an Angle was published in 1496 with The Boke of Saint Albans, attributed to Dame Juliana Berners.  The book contains instructions on rod, line, and hook making and dressings for different flies to use at different times of the year.  By the 15th century, rods of approximately 14 ft in length with a twisted line attached at its tips were used in England. 

The earliest English poetical treatise on Angling by John Dennys, said to have been a fishing companion ofShakespeare, was published in 1613, The Secrets of Angling. Footnotes of the work, written by Dennys' editor, William Lawson, make the first mention of the phrase to 'cast a fly': "The trout gives the most gentlemanly and readiest sport of all, if you fish with an artificial fly, a line twice your rod's length of three hairs' thickness... and if you have learnt the cast of the fly."

The art of fly fishing took a great leap forward after the English Civil War, where a newly found interest in the activity left its mark on the many books and treatises that were written on the subject at the time.

The Compleat Angler was written by Izaak Walton in 1653 (although Walton continued to add to it for a quarter of a century) and described the fishing in theDerbyshire Wye. It was a celebration of the art and spirit of fishing in prose and verse; 6 verses were quoted from John Dennys's earlier work.

A second part to the book was added by Walton's friend Charles CWalton did not profess to be an expert with a fishing fly; the fly fishing in his first edition was contributed by Thomas Barker, a retired cook and humorist, who produced a treatise of his own in 1659; but in the use of the live worm, thegrasshopper and the frog "Piscator" himself could speak as a master. The famous passage about the frog, often misquoted as being about the worm—"use him as though you loved him, that is, harm him as little as you may possibly, that he may live the longer"—appears in the original edition. Cotton's additions completed the instruction in fly fishing and advised on the making of artificial flies where he listed sixty five varieties.