| Fishing. Take a rod and a line and throw it in some | | | | way to catch the fish without actually handling the |
| water. Splash it around a bit and wait until | | | | flies. So what they did was fasten red wool |
| something tugs. If only it were that easy. The | | | | around a hook. They then fixed onto the wool |
| truth is, fishing as a sport is not as easy as most | | | | two feathers which grow under a cock's wattles. |
| people think and is a lot more complicated than | | | | The rod they used was six feet long and the line |
| just throwing your line is some water. For | | | | was also the same length. They then threw the |
| starters there are several types of fishing | | | | line in the direction of the flies. The fish seeing this |
| depending on what kind of fish you want to catch. | | | | line which is disguised to look like the fly think |
| In this article we're going to focus on fly fishing | | | | they are going to have a nice meal and instead |
| and it's origin. | | | | are caught by the fisherman's trap. Fly fishing was |
| Fly fishing goes all the way back to around 200 | | | | developed. |
| AD. The first reference to it was written by | | | | It should be pointed out that according to |
| Aelian who was born around 170 AD. Early in his | | | | accounts of what the fly looked like and what the |
| life he knew nothing of the sea. In his early writing | | | | actual "bait" looked like it would seem that the |
| "On The Nature Of Animals" he writes about a | | | | Macedonians didn't try to imitate the fly exactly, |
| certain way of catching fish supposedly invented | | | | as the fly color was yellow and the bait color was |
| by the Macedonians. A particular fish that runs | | | | red. Some speculation is that the fly changed |
| through the Astraeus River in Macedonia happens | | | | color when near water but this was never |
| to feed on flies that are peculiar to that region. | | | | proven. |
| These flies are not found anywhere else. The | | | | For those interested, the story above was taken |
| natives of the land called this species of fly | | | | from Radcliffe's "Fishing From The Earliest Times," |
| Hippouros. These flies seek their food over the | | | | which was published in 1921. This version of the |
| river and are never very far away from the fish | | | | story is the one most often printed with no credit |
| in the river below. Because of this it is relatively | | | | given to the original author. Radcliffe himself |
| easy for the fish to jump out of the water, | | | | states that he adapted this translation from |
| catching the flies in their mouths and eating them. | | | | "Lambert's Angling Literature in England" first |
| It is from seeing this that the Macedonian's got | | | | published in 1881. Prior to this there was a Latin |
| the idea to use these flies to catch the fish. | | | | translation which was printed in 1558. This printing |
| However, because it is unclean for their people to | | | | however wasn't discovered until 1834. |
| touch this species of fly they had to develop a | | | | In a later article we'll cover modern day fly fishing. |