EclecticGuy

I have been studying the history of fishing for several years to learn more about the rods, flies and techniques used by early anglers. There are many early books that have survived , including “A Treatyse of  Fysshyng with an Angle” attributed to Dame Juliana Berners and originally published in 1496! The contemporary ”The Compleat Angler” by Izaac Walton, originally published in 1653 and a second part added by his friend Charles Cotton (gotta love that hair!). These works and many others have been digitized by the Google Books Project and the Guttenberg Project and made freely available. I have been working my way through these and chasing references and old books in libraries whenever possible to create my own perspective on the history of fly fishing.

To date, I’ve made several wooden fly rods (primarily using the beautifully lettered and illustrated book “Making Strip-Built Fly Rods from Various Woods on a Lathe” by John Betts) with handmade guides and reel seat hardware, hooks and flies, and several small brass reels. The final item to complete my early fishing equipment was the fly line itself. Many of the early accounts go in to detail about procuring and making horse-hair fly lines. Darrel Martin describes and illustrates several methods to make these lines in his excellent “The Fly-Fisher’s Craft, The Art and History“. I’ve made short (6′-9′) lines using these methods using both Mr. Martin’s descriptions and interpretation as well as the original citation. These include:

1. The “Treatyse Jig” as it is called to furl short lengths of hair in to snoods that are knotted together
2. A Walton’s Engine (twisting machine) that I designed and built of brass – again to furl snoods that are knotted together
3. The Williamson Quill Twister to furl snoods that are knotted together
4. Plaiting (braiding) to create a knotless, tapered line

While all of these lines are functional I was not quite satisfied with the final product. Lines constructed using the techniques in 1 and 2 are the best of these but suffer from having a knot every 30″ or so that can hang up in the rod’s guides. They are quick and easy to construct though and wrapping the knot with silk thread helps somewhat. The Quill Twister does not twist the individual strands as tightly as the above methods so the furled snood is looser and prone to unwinding. It does, however, excel at twisting 3 single strands of horse-hair together to make leaders. Finally, the plaited line is very time consuming to construct but does result in a knotless, tapered line. The texture of the braid is very rough though and the line itself is flat – more like a ribbon than a line. This can be somewhat corrected by reducing the hair count in one of the 3 strands.

Then, several weeks ago I found an old book in the Google collection that I had not seen referenced previously. “British Rural Sports: Comprising Shooting, Hunting, Coursing, Fishing, Hawking, Racing, Boating, Pedestrianism, and the Various Rural Games and Amusements of Great Britain” by Stonehenge, published in 1867. A woodcut on page 265 shows a new device for creating continuously tapered, furled, knotless fly lines from horse-hair! The description on page 265 (for some reason the Plate and text pages are numbered the same) is quoted here:

“Reel-Lines are made of horse-hair (from the tail), of silk, or silk and hair mixed, of Indian-weed, and of silkworm gut. It is usual for the amateur fisherman to purchase these lines, which are made by a small machine, but sometimes the angler prefers making them himself, and if at all handy, he may do this with great advantage by the following mode, which is much superior to the twisting-machine, because it admits of the introduction of fresh hair with much greater facility.

In Making the horse-hair line, first procure a quantity of good hair, which may be bought at the shops ; but if it can be obtained from a good young chestnut horse with a flaxen-tail so much the better. When such a horse is docked, a considerable portion of his tail with the hair attached is removed, and that is the very best for the present purpose. A grey horse with a silver mane will give white hair, which requires staining, but the colour of the flaxen mane is as good as any art can give. Young hair is twice as string as the milk-white hair, which is peculiar to old horses. Next procure three pieces of strong goose-quill, each about half an inch long, and fit loosely into them three pieces of deal three or four inches long ; then divide your hair intended for your line into three equal portions ; thus, if your line is to be of eighteen hairs altogether, then let each of your quills receive six, leaving about four inches projecting ; then push in the sticks gently, and ties the loose ends together, as shown in the annexed woodcut (fig. 1). The knot formed by the union of the three divisions is to be attached to some fixed object by a pin ; then take out each stick, one after the other, and pass the quill up to within an inch of the knot, replace the stick, and take two of them in the left hand. The remaining stick is to be gently twisted from right to left, and when sufficiently so, passed over the other two also from right to left, when it should be grasped by the left hand, gently keeping up a slight strain upon the knot. At this time the three are in the position shown in the woodcut ; then let the angler take hold of a d, draw it towards him about a quarter of an inch, allowing the hair to slip through the space between quill and wood ; twist it as before, and pass it over to the left. Repeat this with b e, and then with c f, when a b will again occupy the same position as at first. By carrying on this process a line may soon be turned out of great strength, and of any degree of tightness of twist ; but if too tight, it will be liable to be entangled, or to kink, as it is generally called. As soon as the angler has mastered this part of the process, and has twisted a few inches of line, he must divide the remaining length of his hair into the same number of portions as he has hairs in his line and cut off one hair at each of these lengths, so that he may spice his line regularly throughout its whole length. As soon as one of these cut ends appears loose above the head of the quill, the stick must be removed, and another hair of full length inserted and twisted in with the rest, and so on with every succeeding break. In this way the line appears, when finished, to be furnished with a series of projecting hairs, but these may be removed without danger with a knife, or scissors, or a taper, previously soaking the whole line for twenty-four hours in water. The line may also be gradually reduced in size at the pleasure of the maker, by omitting to insert fresh hairs. By this mode all links and joints are avoided, and the line is everywhere within one hair of the full strength with which it would be furnished if joined in links in the ordinary way.”

Now, let me interpret that for you! I had to read this passage many times, refer to the woodcut and try out each step before I got the true meaning. First, obtain your horse-hair. Contrary to this recommendation, I use white hair (not from an old horse) from a stallion. The woodcut and description of the goose-quill sections is straight forward. Finding goose quills in New England is pretty easy! Cut off the tips of the quill, back to the point where the shaft is fairly straight. Then cut off a 1/2″ section. These quills have a white foam-like material in them that must be removed. I used a 1/8″ drill bit and simply pushed it through the quill section with my fingers. Then spin the drill with your fingers to clean out the material. I used goose quills for my first line but used small pieces of plastic tubing (soda straws) for my second. I am working on a “high tech” version of this idea using aluminum tubes split lengthwise so a hair can be easily introduced and a foam plug to hold the hair and provide just the right amount of friction… but read on.

It took a little googling to determine what “three pieces of deal three or four inches long” meant. Deal, as it turns out, is an old term for for or pine wood. So, this means to use 3 pine sticks about 3″ long. The stick needs to fit into the quill snugly in order to hold the hair, but not too snugly. These sticks should be round and the last 1″ or so tapered to fit the quill. Here is a photo of the sticks fitted in to the quills:

I wanted a line that contained 18 hairs at the butt end and tapered to 3 hairs, approximately 25′ long. That means that each of the 3 strands will start with 6 hairs and taper down to 1. To make this taper, you need to remove 5 hairs over 25′ on each strand. That calculates to 5′ of 6 hairs, 5′ of 5 hairs, 5′ of 4 hairs, … down to 5′ of 1 hair. My tail hair is about 34″ long but after trimming the tips to remove frays and weak areas, comes out to about 30″ long. So, 2 hair lengths will make 5′. I love it when things work out like this.

One thing this account did not mention is to align 1/2 of the hairs in each strand the opposite direction – so, if there are 6 hairs in the strand take 3 of them and turn them end-for-end so their tip ends align with the butt ends of the other 3 hairs. Horse tail hair tapers significantly from the butt to tip – the thin tip section being the weakest. By realigning 1/2 the hairs in this way, you even out the final diameter of the section as well as redistribute the weaker tip sections so they lie next to butt hair sections. Almost every other horse-hair line making description points this out, so maybe it was considered “known art” in this description.

The description of getting started makes sense if you’ve ever furled a rope, line or leader. After inserting the strands (6 hairs each) in to the quills and locking them in place with the wooden pegs, you tie their ends together. This knot is then held so it does not spin as you furl the line. I used my fly tying vise and gently clamped the knot in its jaws – but a nail or push pin works well too. Next, hold 2 sticks in your left hand and the other in your right hand. The instructions call for twisting the stick in your right hand from right to left to impart a twist on the hair. However, right to left clockwise or counterclockwise? Looking up from the bottom of the stick, the rotation should be clockwise. This imparts the standard “rotate, counter rotate” twists required to furl. It is also important to twist enough to give a good furl but not so much as to “entangle or kink” the strand. I find that 3 twists per 1/4″ length of hair is about right. You’ll know when you’ve twisted too much. Follow the recipe of twisting the stick in your right hand, then pass it over the top of the other 2 sticks in your left hand. (Looking from the bottom, this would be a counterclockwise rotation.) Hold the left most 2 in your left hand and  the other in your right. Repeat. You’ll find that it goes pretty quickly. Each time you place a new stick in your right hand, you pull it towards yourself (away from the knot) to let about 1/4″ of hair come out of the top of the quill – that is why the sticks need to be a loose fit. If they are too tight in the quill, you will not be able to pull the hair out without breaking it.

The next challenge comes after you’ve furled about 4″ of line. Just when you get the hang of it, you need to stop and stagger-cut the hair. The description takes a little explanation;

“he must divide the remaining length of his hair into the same number of portions as he has hairs in his line and cut off one hair at each of these lengths, so that he may spice his line regularly throughout its whole length. As soon as one of these cut ends appears loose above the head of the quill, the stick must be removed, and another hair of full length inserted and twisted in with the rest, and so on with every succeeding break.”

The intent is to stagger the ends of each hair in each strand so that when you need to “introduce” new hair, you add 1 hair at a time. This eliminates any weak points in the line if 2 or more hairs needed to be spliced in at the same place. Assume the hair is 30″ long and there are 6 hairs per strand – 18 hairs total – and that you’ve furled 6″. Simply divide 24″ by 18 hairs to get 1 1/3″. Now, you need to leave 1 hair full length, cut 1 1/3″ off all of the remaining hairs. Leave one of those at the new length and cut 1 1/3″ off all of the remaining hairs. Continue this process until you have 18 hairs progressively shorter by 1 1/3″. In practice, I think you need to also stagger the cuts across the strands to help distribute the splices within a strand. Here’s how I do it:

I lay the 3 sticks and quills out side by side in front of me with the hair draping over the edge of a table. Starting with the strand on the left, I leave one hair alone and cut all of the others 4″ shorter (3 * 1 1/3″ = 4″). I pull out one of these and cut the remainder 4″ shorter. Continue this process on this single strand until all 6 hairs are progressively 4″ shorter than their neighbor. Now, move to the middle strand. On this one, you cut 1 1/3″ off ALL hairs. Then, leave one of these alone and cut 4″ off all of the remainders. Pull one of these out and cut the remaining hairs 4″ shorter. Repeat this on the middle strand until all 6 hairs have been cut and are progressively 4″ shorter than their neighbor. Now, take the right-most strand and cut 2 2/3″ off all the hairs. Pull one out and cut 4″ off all of the remaining hairs. Pull one of these aside and cut 4″ off the remainders. Repeat until all 6 hairs have been cut and each hair is progressively 4″ shorter than its neighbor.

Now, look at the mess you created! The cut off sections of hair can be thrown away. What remains are 18 hairs divided into 3 strands and no 2 are the same length. Also, you will notice that within a strand, the hairs lengths are evenly cut at 4″ intervals. Here is a graphic to illustrate:

From this point it is pretty straightforward. You need to introduce a new hair when the end of a hair comes out of the quill. Except, remember, you want to taper the line from 18 to 3 hairs. Since we already know that we need to furl 5′ of length for each set of hairs (18, 15, 12, 9, 6, 3), simply continue replacing hairs until you have completed 5′. At this point, when the end of a hair in a strand appears, do not add a new hair. When the second end emerges later, that’s when you add the new hair (the strand will now have 5 hairs in it). You need to skip adding a single hair on each of the 3 strands. You could simply skip the first hair end that appears in each of the 3 strands. I did that for my first line and it looks fine. But if you think about it, doing so results in the line dropping from one increment (18 hairs) to the next (15 hairs) over a distance of 2 2/3″. I thought it would be better to smooth this transition out so the line transitions from 18 hairs to 17 hairs for 1′ to 16 hairs for another foot to 15 hairs. To do this, simply skip 2 ends on one of the 2 remaining strands and 4 on the other. You could get carried away and create even a smoother transition, but from a strength standpoint, I think about a foot is good. Once you get down to 1 hair per strand, it is harder to twist and furl the line. Be persistent but do not over twist.

Once you reach the final length, tie a knot in the end and clip the hairs to even them up. Starting from the thin end, carefully let the line coil around your hand as you coil it up in to about a 4″ diameter. Don’t stretch it or pull on the loose hairs that appear every 1 1/3″ or so. Place the coil in a bowl or jar filled with water and let it soak over night. The next day, remove it. Starting with the fat end, carefully uncoil the line and use a fine pointed scissors or single edge razor blade to carefully clip the protruding hairs that jut out every 1 1/3″. Do not stretch the line. When the protruding hairs have all been clipped, you need to let the line air dry. I found that coiling it loosely in a 4″ coil and simply laying it on a clean plate in my shop does the trick.

The last step is to make a loop at each end of the line. I like to simply make a bend in the line and bind it down with fine silk thread. Here is the end result:

25′ tapered (18 hairs to 3 hairs), knotless, furled horse-hair fly line

Close-up of furled horse tail hair fly line

You can modify the above to create any length, taper, and thickness of line you need. It doesn’t take a long time to make a horse-hair line in this way and the results are quite pleasing.