Blacker's Art of Fly Making, &c. / Comprising Angling, & Dyeing of Colours, with Engravings of Salmon & Trout Flies

List of Plates.

Plate		Page
1.	Blacker Fly-fishing	Frontispiece.
2.	Titlepage.
3.	An easy method to make the Trout-fly	opposite 3
4.	An easy method of making a Salmon-fly	8
5.	The best method of making a Trout-fly	13
6.	To make the Palmer's	to face 20
7.	How to make the Salmon-fly	23
8.	Process of making the Gaudy Salmon-fly	opposite 30
9.	The plate of Feathers	to face 34
10.	To make the Winged Larva	42
11.	Plate of Six Flies Catechism	46
12.	Plate of 15 Trout-flies	opposite flies for March 57
13.	Plate of 16 Flies	opposite 65
14.	Plate of Larvas and Green Drakes	opposite 78
15.	Plate of Gaudy Flies, Nos. 1, 2, 3,	opposite 105
16.	Plate of three Salmon-flies, Nos. 4, 5, 6,	opposite 108
17.	Plate of four Flies, Nos. 7, 8, 9, 10	110
18.	Large Spring Salmon-fly	116
19.	Plate of 7 Flies and Salmon	to face 145
20.	Plate of Minnow tackle, &c.	to face 216
21.	Plate of Pike tackle, &c.	221
22.	Paternoster and Barbel tackle	230

An Extract of a Review of William Blacker's Art of Fly Making, &c. &c. &c., taken from "Bell's Life in London," April 8th, 1855.

"The Art of Fly Making, Angling & Dyeing of Colours. By W. Blacker,—Mr. Blacker has been a celebrated trout and salmon angler from early boyhood, and he is known to be the best maker of trout and salmon flies alive. We have never seen such flies as his, for naturalness of shape, appropriateness of colour and for beauty and solidity of finish. In making flies he has "caught a grace beyond the reach of art," and this he exhibits in the Sanspareil work before us. It contains no fewer than seventeen engravings on steel and copper, of trout and salmon flies, in every stage of fabrication, from the whipping of hook and gut together to the finishing of the head. These engravings, every plate crowded with figures, are executed after his own models and under his own Surveillance, and carefully and beautifully coloured, he standing, as he says, "by the artist's elbow." They contain coloured representations of hackles, wing-feathers, fur, silk, tinsel, in their natural state, and prepared for forming the artificial insect. His profusely illustrated instructions for making salmon-flies are entirely original there being nothing at all like them in any work extant, and he must be a dull scholar indeed, who shall not, after brief study of them, become his own salmon fly dresser. Mr. Blacker withholds no secret and spares no pains in developing by the aid of pen and pencil his own method, and we consider it the best, of making artificial flies for every variety of trout and salmon. He gives numerous, well-tried recipes for dying feathers and all other materials, the colours necessary for the successful operations of the fly-maker. He points out how rods are best made, the best sort of winches, lines and hooks, and proves himself a safe guide to the purchaser. He teaches how the rod, and line and flies, are to be used—the art of casting with them, how a river is to be fished, and how a fish, whether trout or salmon, is to be struck, hooked and landed. He describes the best trout and salmon rivers in the empire, the right season for fishing them, and gives an illustrated list of the flies, stating the materials of what they are to be made, that kill best on them. On flies, favourites of his from experience, he dwells with pleased and pleasing minuteness, and for the first time discloses how the "winged larva," a deadly invention of his own, is to be constructed. Never, was a book more honestly and conscientiously written. It glows with deep-felt enthusiasm for his art, and with a generous desire of revealing everything that pertains to the perfect acquisition of it in all its branches. It is a work of great labour and long pains-taking, unique at all points, and no one could have written it but a practical angler of long, passionate, and devoted experience in the capture of salmon and salmonidÆ, and of ne plus ultra perfection in the art of making artificial flies, and concomitant fishing tackle. The work is published by himself, at 54, Dean Street, Soho, and we recommend it more earnestly than we have ever done any other work of the sort."

An Extract from "Bell's Life," April 29th, 1855.

"I shall copy a few of Mr. Blacker's patterns as given in his recently-published and very valuable work, entitled Art of Fly Making, &c. He is by far the best flymaker I have ever known, and his opinions on flies and fly-fishing deserve the attention of us all. In the book just named he says of the Yellow Sally:—"This is the forerunner of the green drake or May-fly. The trout take this little fly freely if made after this description:—

"Body, buff-coloured fur and a small yellow hackle for legs round the head; wings of the buff-coloured feather inside the wing of the thrush. Hook, 13."

"Several ways of imitating the May-fly. First, Blacker's, as given in his Art of Fly Making:—The body of this beautiful fly is made of yellow green mohair, the colour of a gosling newly hatched, and ribbed with yellow-brown silk, a shade of light brown mohair at the tail, and a tuft of the same at the shoulder, picked out between the hackle, the whisks of the tail three black hairs, three-quarters of an inch long; the hackle to be dyed a greenish buff (dye, according to my recipe, a silver dun hackle with bars across it, called a cuckoo,) or a light ginger hackle bordering on yellow. The wings, which should be made full, and to stand upright, are made of mallard's feathers dyed of a greenish buff, or yellowish shade; a brown head of peacock harl tied neatly above the wings on a No. 6 hook. The wings may be made of the tops of two large dyed mallard's feathers, with fibres stripped off at the butts of the stems, tied back to back. These feathers stand up well and appear very naturally in the water. Large-sized ones kill well in lakes, with bright yellow mohair bodies ribbed with gold twist.

"Second way, from A Handbook of Angling.—Body, bright yellow mohair, or floss silk, ribbed sparingly with light bronze peacock harl; wings, mottled feather of the mallard dyed a pale yellow green. They are to stand nearly erect, and to be slightly divided. Legs, a couple of turns of a red-ginger hackle; tail, three hairs from the rabbit's whisker. Hook, 5, 6, and 7.—Another way: Body, yellow-brown mohair; wings, mallard's feather dyed yellow, and black head; legs, yellowish hackle; tail and hooks as before. During the season of the May-fly, should the weather be gloomy, with a strong warm wind, I would angle with three flies on the casting-line of different sizes, and of colours slightly differing, buff, yellow, and yellow-green, and one of them made buzz. The largest fly should be used as the stretcher; the smallest the upper bob."

An Extract from "Bell's Life," April 1st, 1855 "The Ondine" in the Book of the Salmon, by "Ephemera,"

"Gold tip; tail, small, brilliant topping, light blue tag; body, blue peacock harl, closely ribbed with fine gold twist; two joints of green trogan feather, and one of red orange hackle under the wings, and over their butts blue jay; wings, a careful mixture of fibres of bustard, silver pheasant, yellow and blue macaw teal, guinea-hen and golden pheasant tail and neck-feathers, surmounted by a topping; feelers, blue and yellow macaw, and bright peacock harl, head. Hook, No. 7 and 8. This waterwitch, sculptured originally by Blacker, is properly called "Ondine." The first time I saw it I nearly lost my senses, and was upon the point of becoming its victim.

"The May-fly and Phelim Rhu are best made by Blacker, of Dean Street, Soho; Phelim is one of his many good inventions. Dressed on the smallest sized grilse hook, it will on dark days and evenings, and in full water kill sea trout and large common trout in every locality. See a celebrated claret fly plate No. 4, page 108."

Prince Albert's Letter to the Author, enclosing £10.

Nearly eleven years have rolled by, since I sent a copy of the first edition of this work to His Royal Highness Prince Albert, who conferred upon me much honor by a favourable reply to it, at that time I took great pains to illustrate it with specimens of the most costly and beautifully executed salmon and trout flies imaginable, many of which were worth a guinea a piece. In this new edition for 1855 I have given numerous copperplates of these excellent killing flies superbly painted to suit the rivers of Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales; such choice specimens are they that I think salmon and trout will not refuse them in any river in Britain, they are models of gracefulness, and will prove very attractive to the finny tribe, they are all general favourite flies of mine, and of the great salmon and trout fly fishers of the present day. The angler should never fail to try them wherever he roamed in rivers known or unknown to him, and succesful experience has given me an opportunity of recommending them with the greatest confidence, they have killed fish when they have been half gnawed away, and as a fisherman I look upon them with admiration although they are the work of my own fingers, I think I will not say amiss if I predestinate that the real enthusiastic fly fishers, nine out of ten, will be in love with them.

THE LETTER.

"Buckingham Palace, May 7th, 1844.

"Mr. Anson is commanded by His Royal Highness Prince Albert to enclose Mr. Blacker a cheque for ten pounds for the Work on Angling which accompanied his letter, the receipt of which he will have the goodness to acknowledge."

Clyx.com