The fly dresser
In her Welsh fishing tackle shop, Jean Williams hand ties concoctions of fur, feather and tinsel, creating flies designed to catch trout on the River Usk
Scarcely a stone’s throw from the river in Usk, Monmouthshire, sits a tiny fishing tackle shop. Inside antique and modern rods sit side by side, a huge cast of a 35½lb salmon hangs on the wall while well-used display cases are filled with colourful fishing flies. A room behind the shop doubles as a workshop. Here nondescript shoeboxes are stacked. These contain a vast selection of furs and feathers, with labels such as dyed swan. This treasure trove for fishers is Sweet’s Fishing Tackle. It has been owned by Jean Williams since 1978, although her connection with the shop goes back much further. She worked here as a Saturday girl in the 1960s while she was still at school. “I came here full-time as soon as I left,” says Jean. “I helped in the shop, Mr Sweet [the then owner] taught me to fish and Mrs Sweet taught me to tie. When Mr Sweet died in 1978, my husband and I bought the business.” Jean is a traditional fly-dresser, an expert in hand tying delicate, often tiny, flamboyant artificial fishing flies. These are used to catch Salmo trutta, the brown trout, a favourite quarry of fishermen on the Usk. There are two types of these manmade flies, wet and dry. Wet flies sink, while dry flies are buoyant, attracting fish on the surface. They are a response to the trout’s feeding habits. The fish feed under the water, but also take nymphs or pupae from the surface.
Things of beauty
Fishing flies are made from a wide range of materials. They are usually beautiful creations, attractive to the human eye as much as the fish’s. Hen feathers are generally used for wet flies because they are softer and move better through the water. The male, or cock, feathers are stiffer and more buoyant and used for dry flies. “I enjoy making flies. It’s very tactile and I love working with so many beautiful things,” says Jean. “There is such an array of colours and textures, and different sorts of materials. There are soft feathers and furs, pieces of silk, hair and wool, and the beautiful colours of the finished flies.” These vary in size from less than ¼in (5mm) to approximately 1¼in (3.5cm). Individual flies may have the same name but can differ in size if different lengths of feather are used to create them. In rough conditions big flies are used as they are more visible. Small flies are ideal in calmer conditions. They can be representational, imitating an insect or bait fish, or just lures. These latter are designed to be noticed without representing anything natural. No one knows why a fish takes a fly. The same fly, in identical conditions, will attract a fish one day, but not another. Why this happens is one of the great imponderables of fishing. The skill of the angler is to make their flies look alive and edible to the fish. It is the fisher’s skill in presenting the fly which determines whether or not the fish bites. “Presentation is most important,” emphasises Jean. “Sometimes, the most bedraggled, mangy-looking fly catches fish because of the fisher’s skill in working it. Equally, the most beautiful fly won’t catch anything if it’s not worked with imagination.”
A need for dexterity
Adept at manipulating her tools, Jean can tie a fly such as a Wickham’s Fancy in 15 minutes. She does not use many tools and none are special. “You do need good light as it is quite fiddly,” she says. “Placing everything on a sheet of white paper to reflect the light helps. A vice is necessary to hold the hook while you’re working, as are some scissors. These are kept just for your fly-tying so they do not become blunted. You need tweezers and hackle pliers to hold fiddly materials such as single hairs or pieces of feather. “Bobbin holders are used to keep silks and threads.
“Let me... cast the feather’d hook, With pliant rod athwart the pebbled brook, Silent along the mazy margin stray, And with the fur-wrought fly delude the prey.” John Gay, ‘Rural Sports’
Lots of small containers or boxes are handy to keep things in. The most important thing is keeping everything organised and knowing where all the bits and pieces are. If someone was tying for a hobby, I think it would take about six months to become adequately skilled.” Jean finds it easy to get hold of all the materials she needs. “Living in the country, all sorts of furs and feathers are available. There are squirrels, pheasant, game birds generally, wildfowl, rabbits, hares, moles, badgers, foxes. When people know you tie flies, they’ll often bring you things they’ve found. One customer wanted some Muddler Minnows, which require deer hair. Sweet’s had none so he sent us a whole skin. “There are established feather merchants and breeders of endangered species. This makes it possible to get feathers and capes of birds, which are no longer available in the wild. Soft wools and silks are easy to obtain. Years ago, when I was a girl, someone came in wanting to make a Sweeney Todd. This is a 20th century, English fly for still-water fishing on dams and reservoirs. It uses squirrel fur dyed black. He didn’t have any, so he cut off a bit of my hair which was black then!” The peacock’s showy feathers are essential for the fly-dresser. These are used for numerous popular flies including the Coch-y-bonddhu. Adult peacocks have approximately 150 striking eye feathers, which are shed annually. When hung up in bright sunlight, their iridescent, blue-green colour changes to bronze. Jean has stands of them in the shop. In contrast, a single teal provides just a few suitable wing feathers needed for flies like Teal, Blue & Silver.
Part of the enjoyment Jean gets from running the shop is meeting people. “It’s lovely when they come and tell me they’ve caught fish on my flies,” she says. “I see them growing up, coming in as boys to show me their first fish, and then bringing their children here so they can learn to fish too.” To its aficionados, fly fishing is multi-layered, as much meditation and philosophy as practical sport. Solitude, peacefulness and rhythmic, repetitive casting can combine to make it an almost hypnotic experience. “Fishing not all about catching fish,” says Jean. “Much practice is required to cast a fly delicately before a rising fish. When this is achieved, however, and the fish is hooked, the satisfaction is intense. And the excitement of realising an impossible-to-see fish is moving beneath the water, casting to it, and having it take the fly is magical. Once a fisher is hooked, they are caught for life!”