Fishing Flies. Smalley

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      Plate 8 from T. E. Pritt’s Yorkshire Wet Flies – note that in the 1880s, fly hooks were eyeless.

       BLUE PARTRIDGE

      Hook: Size 14.

      Thread: Blue.

      Body: Tying thread, dubbed with a little blue lamb’s wool.

      Hackle (called ‘Wings’ by Pritt): Partridge back.

      These styles of flies reached maturity in the Victorian era, at the height of British imperial power. As they travelled the empire, so the British took with them the brown trout that they loved to catch back at home – and to catch those trout they took their flies.

      Captain G. D. Hamilton first visited New Zealand in about 1845 and he moved there in about 1860 to farm sheep, turning 40,000 acres of virgin country into ‘English grasses’. In his book Trout-Fishing and Sport in Maoriland (1904), Hamilton relates how he stocked the river that flowed near to where he settled in the early 1870s, with brown trout. Ova were transported by ship on ice halfway round the world – with their journey completed on the backs of pack-mules. Others stocked the watercourses of New Zealand with rainbow trout from North America. Some of these stocked fish became migratory, swimming down to the ocean and returning to spawn as sea trout; others migrated into big lakes. The trout grew much bigger in New Zealand waters than they did back at home: ‘It may be taken as a rule that all streams with sufficient water contain some exceptionally large trout, up to 8lb., 10lb., 11lb., and 12lb. in weight.’

      Hooks for tying flies were imported from England, but the hooks sent out to New Zealand were not strong enough to hold these big trout. So Hamilton wrote to manufacturers in the then capital of hook-making, Redditch, requesting they make especially strong hooks for him. These, together with the five fly patterns that Hamilton came up with, were all that anyone needed to catch New Zealand trout.

      These flies are commonly known as red hackle, hare’s-ear, black hackle, black spider, hare’s-ear spider.

      No. 1, red hackle, light-brown mallard wing, yellow-silk body, is the most easily seen when the water is discoloured, and therefore best for use at that time.

      No.2, turn of brown partridge hackle, hare’s-ear body, light woodcock wing, put together with yellow silk: A killing fly when the weather is clear and low.

      No. 3, black hackle, grouse wing, brown-silk body, put together with brown silk: Easily seen when the water is clear and low, and kills well then.

      No. 4, spider, black hackle, tied with brown silk, brown-silk body: Easily seen when the water is clear and low. A good fly to use as a tail fly when the trout are getting into high condition and shy, and when there is bright sunshine.

      No. 5, spider, brown partridge hackle, hare’s-ear body, put together with yellow silk: Very killing, when the water is clear and low, among high-conditioned and shy trout. Used as a tail fly this is perhaps the most reliable of the whole, particularly among large trout of 2lb. and upwards.