Dear Editor:

My article on William Blacker in the most recent "Salmon Flyer" was written well over a year ago. Since that time I have had access to a first edition of Blacker published in 1842. The text runs to 38 (not 31) pages. The "Plate with the Picker" appearing in the Fly Fisher's Classic Library (FFCL) reprint of the 32rd (1855) edition of Blacker is indeed, as guessed, the oldest of the illustrations. In the first edition it is the only plate and appears opposite the title page. There are 5 1/2 pages of very clear instruction in the first edition, these run to many more by the time the third is printed.

Before writing the following I must put on my sheep face. Toward the end of the "Salmon Flyer" article I stated that the plate of feathers (Plate 9, "The Plate of Feathers" facing P. 34 of the 3rd edition 1855, FFCL facsimile) was unfinished. I was wrong. The large, dark hackle in the central part of the plate is the second of 2 drawings. The first is the two small hackles, one atop the other, immediately to the left of the butt of the larger feathers.

In the small drawing the lower feather is light claret and the upper one appears to be dark claret an appears to be larger than the lower one.

Moving to the larger illustration, one notices that the fully feathered part of the uppermost and darker feather extends only half way down the spine toward the tip. Beyond that are some straight blue lines that diverge from the spine. This is where I went wrong in assuming, full of conceit, that the colorists had not finished the plate. In fact they had.

The straight blue lines are symbolic of feather fibers which, if in place would obliterate the feather below it, just as they did in the bottom or left end of the feather where it is fully painted What we are presented with, then, is an X-ray picture of how things are supposed to be - possibly the first in fly tying instruction.

This particular plate may offer something else. A good deal of instruction in both of Blacker's books, as well as others, is shown in illustrations and completely absent from the text. Simple omission and its continued life through poor editing is one reason. Another is that, as if everyone knows how to go about it, there was no need to mention it (e.g. Halford's style of cut wing). In the illustrations of the 2 previously mentioned feathers one, the lower one of light claret, appears in both drawings to have shorter barbs than the darker and upper feather (Artistic license? Maybe, or maybe not.).

Instructions often say (Blacker included) to use, if two are required, two feathers of the same size or length. Does size here always mean length of the feather? We have no problem accepting that, but seemed to have um that the measurement always included barb length as well. What, for example, would the effect be if glossy hackles of the same feather length but different barb lengths were used (Lets's say a long fibered dark claret over or with a shorter fibered medium blue over medium claret seal or pig's wool, or a long fibered darkish green olive with a shorter fibered yellow olive over golden olive dubbing)? One would think that the effect could be quite spectacular. William Blacker was more than good enough to have considered this and may even have done it.

We should remember that in his time, and much later, there was no direct overhead lighting. Daylight through a window was the only source. Holding the fly in one's hands as it is tied in an oblique light will show more about why materials are combined the way they are than any study done under a lamp. The only way the effect can be approximated is out of doors, by a window or by aiming the tying lamp slightly toward you and lowering the fly down from the complete shade created by the lamp hood across the line dividing light and shade created by the rim of the hood. Your eye should be above the edge of the rim of the hood when doing this. You should be looking at the side of the fly.