Fountains of Youth – Classic trout flies that have withstood the test of time … flies that remain “forever young”
by Rusty Dunn
On a glorious late April day in England in the early 1800s, daffodils trumpet spring’s arrival and songbirds sing in harmony. ‘Tis Shakespeare’s proverbial “sweet o’ the year”. A gentleman of leisure prepares for an angling getaway on nearby private waters. He consults books authored by fly-fishing’s leading authorities to learn what mayflies might hatch in late April. One book suggests a hatch of ‘Little Dark Watchets’. Another says ‘Dark Bloas’. Yet another, ‘Jenny Spinners’. The next, ‘Little Blacks’. The angler is puzzled and confused, because each book says something different about late April hatches. He wonders which, if any, of them is correct. Unknown to the gentleman, however, all the books are correct. Their predicted mayflies for late April are all the exact same species.
The names of insects important for trout angling was chaotic and unorganized prior to 1836, when Alfred Ronalds published his landmark book The Fly-Fisher’s Entomology. Ronalds pioneered insect identification and hatch matching for fly fishers. He was the first angling author to identify insects by their scientific genus and species names. Prior to Ronalds, insect names were haphazard at best. Discussing a hatch of ‘Whirling Duns’, ‘Cow Ladies’, or ‘Bracken Clocks’ was cute, but the names were informal, strongly regional, inconsistent, and very confusing.
Ronalds made order of the nomenclature chaos. He presented both the common names recognized by anglers and taxonomic names established by scientists. Accompanying illustrations depicted naturals and imitations side by side. Ronalds was an engraver and lithographer by trade, and he personally engraved, printed, and hand-colored the exceptionally beautiful book plates. Ronalds described The Fly-Fisher’s Entomology as “the amusement of an amateur”, but few books in angling history have had such a lasting impact on the practice and literature of fly angling.
Ronalds had the inquiring mind of a naturalist and the experimental skills of a scientist. About half of The Fly-Fisher’s Entomology concerns insects and their imitation, but the other half concerns trout behavior. Ronalds built a “trout blind” hanging over a river from which he could secretly observe trout behavior. He discharged a shotgun over feeding fish and demonstrated that trout are oblivious to noise above the surface. He understood the physics of light reflection and refraction and was the first author to describe a trout’s view of the world above the surface (“the window”). He doctored natural and artificial “baits” with various concoctions and deduced that trout have excellent discrimination of edible vs. inedible based on vision, but very little discrimination based on taste. Ronalds discovered by trial and error that insect translucency is best imitated when colors of the tying thread show through a thin veneer of overlying dubbing. Ronalds was not the first to suggest this, but his methods were adopted universally due to the influence of his book.
The Fly-Fisher’s Entomology describes 47 insects relevant to British anglers. One of them, the grannom, is a caddisfly common in Europe and North America. American grannoms (often called “Mother’s Day Caddis”) comprise several species of the genus Brachycentrus. They hatch in late April to early May and last a couple of weeks. Hatches can be intense, as noted by author E. Powell in The Country Sportsman:
“A hatch of grannom is a sad affliction, for it is generally so brief that there is little time to think and the trout seem to find it so satisfying that they are difficult to stir for the rest of the day.”
Grannoms vary somewhat in size and color, but most are size #16 to #18 with dark gray-brown bodies and green or olive highlights. Egg-laying females carry a green egg mass at the tips of their tails. Ronalds’ grannom imitation was the Green Tail fly, which first appeared in J. Chetham’s The Angler’s Vade Mecum (1681). Its distinguishing feature is a tag of bright green at the tail to imitate the egg sack of gravid females.
Copyright 2026, Rusty Dunn
Green Tail
Ronald’s imitation for grannoms follows below. Grannoms of the Driftless are generally very dark green (so dark that they are usually called “Black Caddis”). They vary in size from about hook sizes #16 to #18.
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Hook:
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Light wire, #14 – #18
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Thread:
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Brown silk
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Tag:
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Bright green silk floss or dubbing to represent an egg sack
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Body:
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Fur of a hare’s mask spun on tying silk and left rough
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Wing:
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Feather of a partridge wing, tied very full
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Hackle:
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Pale ginger hen hackle, tied as a collar to imitate legs
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Green Tail
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Posted: January 5, 2026 by Drew Kasel
by Rusty Dunn
On a glorious late April day in England in the early 1800s, daffodils trumpet spring’s arrival and songbirds sing in harmony. ‘Tis Shakespeare’s proverbial “sweet o’ the year”. A gentleman of leisure prepares for an angling getaway on nearby private waters. He consults books authored by fly-fishing’s leading authorities to learn what mayflies might hatch in late April. One book suggests a hatch of ‘Little Dark Watchets’. Another says ‘Dark Bloas’. Yet another, ‘Jenny Spinners’. The next, ‘Little Blacks’. The angler is puzzled and confused, because each book says something different about late April hatches. He wonders which, if any, of them is correct. Unknown to the gentleman, however, all the books are correct. Their predicted mayflies for late April are all the exact same species.
The names of insects important for trout angling was chaotic and unorganized prior to 1836, when Alfred Ronalds published his landmark book The Fly-Fisher’s Entomology. Ronalds pioneered insect identification and hatch matching for fly fishers. He was the first angling author to identify insects by their scientific genus and species names. Prior to Ronalds, insect names were haphazard at best. Discussing a hatch of ‘Whirling Duns’, ‘Cow Ladies’, or ‘Bracken Clocks’ was cute, but the names were informal, strongly regional, inconsistent, and very confusing.
Ronalds made order of the nomenclature chaos. He presented both the common names recognized by anglers and taxonomic names established by scientists. Accompanying illustrations depicted naturals and imitations side by side. Ronalds was an engraver and lithographer by trade, and he personally engraved, printed, and hand-colored the exceptionally beautiful book plates. Ronalds described The Fly-Fisher’s Entomology as “the amusement of an amateur”, but few books in angling history have had such a lasting impact on the practice and literature of fly angling.
Ronalds had the inquiring mind of a naturalist and the experimental skills of a scientist. About half of The Fly-Fisher’s Entomology concerns insects and their imitation, but the other half concerns trout behavior. Ronalds built a “trout blind” hanging over a river from which he could secretly observe trout behavior. He discharged a shotgun over feeding fish and demonstrated that trout are oblivious to noise above the surface. He understood the physics of light reflection and refraction and was the first author to describe a trout’s view of the world above the surface (“the window”). He doctored natural and artificial “baits” with various concoctions and deduced that trout have excellent discrimination of edible vs. inedible based on vision, but very little discrimination based on taste. Ronalds discovered by trial and error that insect translucency is best imitated when colors of the tying thread show through a thin veneer of overlying dubbing. Ronalds was not the first to suggest this, but his methods were adopted universally due to the influence of his book.
The Fly-Fisher’s Entomology describes 47 insects relevant to British anglers. One of them, the grannom, is a caddisfly common in Europe and North America. American grannoms (often called “Mother’s Day Caddis”) comprise several species of the genus Brachycentrus. They hatch in late April to early May and last a couple of weeks. Hatches can be intense, as noted by author E. Powell in The Country Sportsman:
“A hatch of grannom is a sad affliction, for it is generally so brief that there is little time to think and the trout seem to find it so satisfying that they are difficult to stir for the rest of the day.”
Grannoms vary somewhat in size and color, but most are size #16 to #18 with dark gray-brown bodies and green or olive highlights. Egg-laying females carry a green egg mass at the tips of their tails. Ronalds’ grannom imitation was the Green Tail fly, which first appeared in J. Chetham’s The Angler’s Vade Mecum (1681). Its distinguishing feature is a tag of bright green at the tail to imitate the egg sack of gravid females.
Copyright 2026, Rusty Dunn
Green Tail
Ronald’s imitation for grannoms follows below. Grannoms of the Driftless are generally very dark green (so dark that they are usually called “Black Caddis”). They vary in size from about hook sizes #16 to #18.
Hook:
Light wire, #14 – #18
Thread:
Brown silk
Tag:
Bright green silk floss or dubbing to represent an egg sack
Body:
Fur of a hare’s mask spun on tying silk and left rough
Wing:
Feather of a partridge wing, tied very full
Hackle:
Pale ginger hen hackle, tied as a collar to imitate legs
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