Fly Selection Masterclass

[Inchlaggan]

The Romans eh? What did they ever do for fly-fishing?

[Tim]

A wee bit suspect on some of the history there but reasonably accurate.  The significant defect is you forgot, or are not aware of, the contributions made by my ancestors.

Go to   http://www.wildfisher.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=5110.0  and various others for the truth.

So it's a variant history rather than an original history?

Genius either way.

Tim

[Inchlaggan]

i have a feeling inchlaggan is going to be up all night :lol:

Aye yir right enough there.
Lying awake all night, tossing and turning with my Gibbons in my hand and not a thing about fishing.
Talk about a waste of time, though I really like the documentary he did about that wee stoatir Vivien Heilbron but (John, Chapter eleven, verse 3) whit a life that lassie had! That's the north east for you! I prefer the one about the stamps, at least that has pictures in.

To relax, I went back to the Prog Rock thread and pulled out album "Six" (not the live one, the studio album) and must have been thinking subliminally when the track dedicated to that great outdoorsman Bill Oddie oozed into my subconscious (the malt had been ersed by now).

It dawned, and dawned on me why PA could not find the answer to the question I so challengingly set. Unlike myself and Bill Oddie he is not using primary sources, merely the meanderings of a lickspittle spin doctor and (c'mon now) the oral history of the Grahams?- you didn't really think any of them could write did you? In Latin?

Primary sources is where it is at. Get with the street old man!

A quick call to my old mate Dr Pedro Rosso at the archaeological museum in Sousse, Tunisia would put things right. Unfortunately, Tunisian is not one of my languages and English not one of Pedro's, but we got by in Ancient Greek and a little know Aramaic dialect.

Straight off, he reminds me of the mosaic from the Early Roman Empire that I excavated a few years ago (there have been so many that I forgot this one) and forwards a picture.

Before we take a look at the conclusive proof of what the Romans did for Fly Fishing I must point out that not all of it was good. Further, as with much art of the time, it is not realism but allegory. For an explanation of this difference please see my treatise "Noodie Wimmin in Pompeii Pictures, What they really mean, and why they are not porn and really Art".

The eight gentlemen depicted have left their waders in the chariot and are fishing NZ style in skin-tight outfits. They are loch fishing, but sadly the loch has been stocked (shock- horror) and even worse-look away now Bruce- with non-native species!!!

Now for the allegory.

The four boats are arranged in the positions North, South, East and West, but these can also represent Top, Bottom, Left and Right. Also remember that the Latin for left is "sinister".

We will start with the pair from the South or Bottom, or lowest of the low. They are dead baiting and, accordingly, have caught nothing. In their desperation, they a chucking out a massive boillie larger than their prey and thus with no hope of catching. See we are learning lessons here.

Those on the East are netting salmon, they will catch a few little ones, but that is all. Indeed, they are depicted taking all of the smallest fish in the mosaic. Getting the message?

Those from the West (left, sinister remember?) are not fishing at all. Two, empty, five litre,  Buckie flagons float away from the boat. On ned shows a third flagon as empty whilst his mate struggles drunkenly to open the fourth whilst peeing in the boat. Not subtle is it!

In the North, at the top, highest, nearest to the Gods are two fly-fishermen.
Both using single handed rods and Wildfisher lines.
The first is carefully bringing a bandie to hand, which he will release. The second has executed a perfect curve cast to place his flee right on the nose of a whumper.  If you look closely you will recognise the flee.........

QED.

History is bunk, where's the pies?

[attachimg=1]

[Malcolm]

John Updike v Frederic Raphael v Tom Sharpe!

Very good lads keep it up I'll let you know how this afternoon's fishing goes... dum loquimor fugerit invida aetas.

[Inchlaggan]

Hey PA! Who gave the bean counter from the Stats unit a new box of crayons?
We haven't finished with the Romans yet, barely touched on the Greeks and Egyptians, and he takes us -with a single post-, all the way to the Sedgehog.
Dame Juliana?
Isaak?
Shouldn't he just be drawing wee circles and colouring in the segments?
This is education not evangelism!

[Inchlaggan]

all history is wrong, except the stuff what I rite.

[Inchlaggan]

Dr Zoomerheid, the bean counter, thinks it would be informative to put history into perspective and bridge into modern times does he? Well he'd better get his history of fly-fishing right then.......

Metal hooks- Ur, 2600BC

Fishing as sport- Egypt, Early Dynastic Period, 2000BC – See
(1) the excavations at Beni Hassan, Kings fished but did not eat 'em so had to put them back- catch and release.
(2) The Tomb of Khnumhotep – translation "numpty" for the first "released at distance"
(3) The Saqqara tombs of the Old Kingdom- Liesure fishing, getting charged a fortune to fish.

And while were are still in Egypt, Plutarch reports that Cleopatra ripped the pish out of Anthony's casting technique and told him to go off conquering instead. See where that got us!

Zoomerheid goes onto wonder about horse hair lines and who tied them together then states "we do not know". Obviously he hisnae read his Plutarch!
Good old Plut has plenty to say on the subject not least that the hair nearest the hook be taken from a white horse- a clear definition of a tippet. Further the hair of a stallion is best, followed by that of a gelding and that that of a mare is the worst on account of the effect of her urine on the hair. The first example of "line care"- do not let your mare piss on your Wildfisher fly lines!

Then Zoomerheid slips in some casting details- is he qualified to do this?
(as an aside, try Isaiah 19:8 for bad casting)

His chronology goes all to pot, next introducing waterwheels. Sorry pal, not read my old mate Philo of Byzantium's "Pneumatica"? 280-220BC for a description of water wheels.
Then silk, sorry sericulture starts around 3500BC, and they are using it in Egypt in 1070BC, an' no fir curtains either!
The Romans are banned from using too much silk in their togas by the Sumptuary laws introduced by Tiberius (42BC- 37AD) presumably to maintain the production of fishing lines.

Whilst we are still in Roman times, we should look at PA's post. My illustrious colleague has much of interest to say but the wee gobshite's grasp of geography is piss. "The Port of Aosta" – that's a landlocked valley in the northwest! You mean Ostia you prat. And it was the Mesopotamians that first bred fish in artificial ponds. It is also no surprise that the only two Emperors he mentions (Augustus and Trajan) were also fishermen.

Zoomerheid skips through 1600 years to the 1930's and cannae even get that right- he probably believes that "Nylon" is a contraction of "New York" and "London"! Wallace Carothers would be spinning in his grave- I ken he's deid, he committed sideyways in 1937 having produced polyamide66 the year before. DuPont kept it a secret until September 1938 and got the press along to see what they could make with this new stuff. That ither wee stoatir Katherine Hepburn wis oan haun to show it aff- aye that has got your attention, you're a' googling for images of this one- yes it was a toothbrush- nylon stockings were 1940.

So none of this "fast forward to the sedgehog" nonsense. Aelian's Macedonians still have much to teach us, not least that the fish they are hunting are "speckled"- troots!
Now there are few enough fly-fishermen that can read, let alone read Greek, and most give up when they learn that the Macedonians used red wool and feathers. If you plough on you will find a list of fly-tying materials-

"Natural Horsehair- white, black, flame coloured and half-grey, but of the dyed hair they select only those that are grey, or of true sea-purple, for the rest they say are pretty poor. They use, too, the straight bristles of swine, and thread and much copper and lead, and cords".

Soon make a decent Peter Ross out of that lot!

He even has a joke about a millionaire who has bought "a thousand times too many flies".

So, having corrected the two idiots, we are back on topic. Fly Selection.

[Malcolm]

He's just jealous of folk who aren't of his age and can talk eloquently on more subjects than him.  Can't even decline "loquimor" correctly.  That's the result of an English education.   Err.. that's Big Malky.

Hah, direct from Horace that one, one of the few bits of Latin that has stuck with me from my schooldays.

Looking forward to the Japanese and Chinese traditions as well...

[Inchlaggan]

Sorry to hear about the hospitalisations, hope all are well.
Ken

[Inchlaggan]

I'll gloss over a similar incident with Carruthers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Carothers

Note the spelling, I said NOTE THE SPELLING- and the double contribution to fly-fishing.
We will continue the education of the hard of thinking with some thoughts on the contributions from China and Japan.
However, it is going to take a couple of hours to get my Mandarin and Cantonese up to speed, so watch this space.