Probably the first salmon caught was caught on a dry fly, yet those who dress classic Atlantic salmon flies devote their energies to the production of wet flies. The earliest accounts of fly fishing for salmon support the proposition that dry flies were used for salmon before wet flies.

In 1659 Barker wrote in Barker's Delight of salmon rising, like a trout, to a fly. Venerables in The Experienced Angler of 1662 discussed angling "upon or above the water" with artificial flies and named the salmon first in his list of five fish that "freely rise at the fly." The strongest evidence is found in Frank's Northern Memoirs of 1694 ("writ in the year 1658") where one can read, "The next thing that falls under the angler's consideration, is the bait or charm for the royal race of salmon; which I reduce under two classes of general, viz. the fly for frolic, to flourish and sport on the surface of the streams..."

How about a few of those early dry flies from some of you salmon fly dressers?

- Alex Jackson