By Simon Everett
Traditional trouting
A little grayling splashes on the surface
I
’d like to take you back in time to the very roots of fly fishing, using the traditional method on an historic water. There is much debate about the roots of fly fishing with many people quoting Izaac Walton and Charles Cotton as the founding fathers. Whilst they may have gained popular publicity the roots of traditional fly fishing can be traced back a further 500 years or more to the Cistercian monks and the alpine streams of Italy in the 11th century, some evidence supports use of the system by the Romans even. The texts tell of simple, slim-bodied, soft hackled flies and short lines to drift them in the faster water, exactly how the north country spiders are tied and fished. So how did the continental fishing methods reach the remote Dales of Yorkshire? To answer this one must consider the times, it was a period when Christian pilgrimages were popular and the mighty Abbeys were vastly influential to both trade and travel. It 56
isn’t difficult when you realise the importance they had in developing Yorkshire’s wool trade, exporting bales of prime Swaledale wool to the continent and knowledge of the flies being brought the opposite way and
Light tackle and tiny flies
Winter 2021 Irish Country Sports and Country Life
then working through the Dales by word of mouth amongst the drovers and from Abbey to Abbey. The popular flies that have stood the test of time and perpetuate the tradition have been distilled over the years from a
