Newbie Question: What hopper pattern?
 

"Dave LaCourse" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 09 Nov 2007 09:24:19 -0500, jeff
wrote:

"trail": [def. #14] - "to fish by trailing a line from a moving boat;
troll."

I stand corrected on the dictionary fact. It is, however, not called
trailing in the U.S. And I believe you know that.

Well, maybe not everywhere in the U. S. And maybe not now.

So, I checked. I checked 42 sources, all but one American publications
prior to 1920. I found exactly one indisputable reference (in Henry Van
Dyke's "Fisherman's Luck") to "trailing" in the sense in which it is used in
this thread, which is to say as a synonym for "trolling." A couple of
others arguably approach that sense, but I remain dubious.

I have many other publications, both British and American, but,
unfortunately, they have not yet been converted to searchable text. De
nada, 41 samples should be sufficient to inspire a reasonable confidence
that the term "trailing" was, while not entirely unheard of, not in common
use in the sense of "trolling" in the 19th or early 20th centuries in
America.

Meanwhile, the 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica offers up this
little gem: "The other method of using the fly, harling, which is practised
on a few big rivers, consists in trailing the fly behind a boat rowed
backward and forwards across the stream and dropping gradually downwards."
Note here, that the synonym for "trolling" used here is "harling."
"Trailing," in this instance appears to be simply a descriptive term used to
explain the practice, emphatically NOT the name of the practice.

Conversely, a footnote to the article on angling reads as follows: "Trolling
is very commonly confused in angling writing and talk with trailing, which
simply means drawing a spinning-bait along behind a boat in motion."

The closest we come to a definition of trolling in the same article:
"Trolling, the method of "sink and draw" with a dead bait, referred to
previously in this article, is not much practised nowadays..."

Several other occurrences of the word "trolling" in the article shed no
further light on the matter.


From the personal experience desk......

In half a century of paying close attention to the English language as she
is spoke here in the colonies, I do not recall ever coming across "trailing"
used in the sense in which we commonly use "trolling," either in
contemporary literature or in the spoken tongue.


Back to the dictionary.....

The folks at Random House, by defining "trail" as a synonym for "troll" and
listing this as the 14th definition, appear to agree that this is an
uncommon usage here. I suggest that "vanishingly" would be a good adjective
to use in quantifying just how uncommon.


Bottom line......

Trolling, indisputably the preferred term here in the U. S., is used, for
all practical purposes, exclusively. Trailing is virtually extinct in this
sense, and appears never to have been widespread or popular.....or at least
not within the last century.

Wolfgang

Newbie Question: What hopper pattern?
 

On 9 Nov, 17:30, "Wolfgang" wrote:
"Dave LaCourse" wrote in message

...

On Fri, 09 Nov 2007 09:24:19 -0500, jeff
wrote:

"trail": [def. #14] - "to fish by trailing a line from a moving boat;
troll."

I stand corrected on the dictionary fact. It is, however, not called
trailing in the U.S. And I believe you know that.

Well, maybe not everywhere in the U. S. And maybe not now.

So, I checked. I checked 42 sources, all but one American publications
prior to 1920. I found exactly one indisputable reference (in Henry Van
Dyke's "Fisherman's Luck") to "trailing" in the sense in which it is used in
this thread, which is to say as a synonym for "trolling." A couple of
others arguably approach that sense, but I remain dubious.

I have many other publications, both British and American, but,
unfortunately, they have not yet been converted to searchable text. De
nada, 41 samples should be sufficient to inspire a reasonable confidence
that the term "trailing" was, while not entirely unheard of, not in common
use in the sense of "trolling" in the 19th or early 20th centuries in
America.

Meanwhile, the 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica offers up this
little gem: "The other method of using the fly, harling, which is practised
on a few big rivers, consists in trailing the fly behind a boat rowed
backward and forwards across the stream and dropping gradually downwards."
Note here, that the synonym for "trolling" used here is "harling."
"Trailing," in this instance appears to be simply a descriptive term used to
explain the practice, emphatically NOT the name of the practice.

Conversely, a footnote to the article on angling reads as follows: "Trolling
is very commonly confused in angling writing and talk with trailing, which
simply means drawing a spinning-bait along behind a boat in motion."

The closest we come to a definition of trolling in the same article:
"Trolling, the method of "sink and draw" with a dead bait, referred to
previously in this article, is not much practised nowadays..."

Several other occurrences of the word "trolling" in the article shed no
further light on the matter.

From the personal experience desk......

In half a century of paying close attention to the English language as she
is spoke here in the colonies, I do not recall ever coming across "trailing"
used in the sense in which we commonly use "trolling," either in
contemporary literature or in the spoken tongue.

Back to the dictionary.....

The folks at Random House, by defining "trail" as a synonym for "troll" and
listing this as the 14th definition, appear to agree that this is an
uncommon usage here. I suggest that "vanishingly" would be a good adjective
to use in quantifying just how uncommon.

Bottom line......

Trolling, indisputably the preferred term here in the U. S., is used, for
all practical purposes, exclusively. Trailing is virtually extinct in this
sense, and appears never to have been widespread or popular.....or at least
not within the last century.

Wolfgang

Man sagt auch schleppen................... Ist wohl nicht sonderlich
bekannt in Amerika, aber fast jeder hier benutzt es.

Nur um es klarzustellen.........

MC

Newbie Question: What hopper pattern?
 

On 9 Nov, 17:28, rw wrote:
I don't like hopper patterns with wings and, especially, with legs.
Those features are completely superfluous, IMO, and unless perfectly
tied (and even WHEN perfectly tied) they tend to cause the tippet to twist.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

I don´t like them with feather wings, etc, either now( although I used
to use patterns like this), but I think the legs are an important
recognition factor in many cases. Of course, a large percentage of the
time, they are indeed superfluous, the fly without legs will still
catch fish. It is just easier to make good and functional imitations
in foam than it is to use many traditional materials.

The main reason I like a fairly good impressionistic pattern, with
legs etc, is because I often target specific and difficult fish, often
after having tried other patterns unsuccessfully, and the more
accurate the imitation, the better my chances of hooking it.

TL
MC

Newbie Question: What hopper pattern?
 

"Mike" wrote in message
oups.com...

Man sagt auch schleppen................... Ist wohl nicht sonderlich
bekannt in Amerika, aber fast jeder hier benutzt es.

Nur um es klarzustellen.........

As you yourself have pointed out on several occasions, the bulk of the
readers and writers in r.o.f.f. are American. It should come as no surprise
that we communicate in American English. To be sure, no one is barred (or
even discouraged, to the best of my recollection) from using any other
dialect or even another language, but the chances of communicating anything
useful to a wide audience in the process diminish rapidly. More
specifically (in this instance), English is the only language I speak.....or
read.....beyond a few stock phrases.

Wolfgang

Newbie Question: What hopper pattern?
 

"Mike" wrote in message
oups.com...
On 9 Nov, 16:20, "Wolfgang" wrote:
"MC" wrote in message

...



Also, the fly Oakiedokey posted has a normal chenille or wool body;

http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flyt.../3198fotw.html

which is why in my opinion it wont work very well.

Just yesterday, that wasn't an opinion, it was a fact. In either case,
one
supposes it must be a great comfort, in a life that reportedly has so
few,
to know that one can still trump the many years of other people's
combined
experience with a simple statement unencumbered (thus far, anyway) by
experience of one's own.

Dressed with the right poly yarn, which is hydrophobic, it will work a
lot
better.

Dressed with a bit of much deserved humility, this would work much
better.

Wolfgang

What relevance has humility to the properties of fly-dressing
materials?

What relevance have your delusions to fact?

Wolfgang

Newbie Question: What hopper pattern?
 

On 9 Nov, 18:09, "Wolfgang" wrote:
"Mike" wrote in message

oups.com...



On 9 Nov, 16:20, "Wolfgang" wrote:
"MC" wrote in message

...

Also, the fly Oakiedokey posted has a normal chenille or wool body;

http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flyt.../3198fotw.html

which is why in my opinion it wont work very well.

Just yesterday, that wasn't an opinion, it was a fact. In either case,
one
supposes it must be a great comfort, in a life that reportedly has so
few,
to know that one can still trump the many years of other people's
combined
experience with a simple statement unencumbered (thus far, anyway) by
experience of one's own.

Dressed with the right poly yarn, which is hydrophobic, it will work a
lot
better.

Dressed with a bit of much deserved humility, this would work much
better.

Wolfgang

What relevance has humility to the properties of fly-dressing
materials?

What relevance have your delusions to fact?

Wolfgang

None, I have no delusions.

MC

Newbie Question: What hopper pattern?
 

Wolfgang wrote:
"Mike" wrote in message
oups.com...

Man sagt auch schleppen................... Ist wohl nicht sonderlich
bekannt in Amerika, aber fast jeder hier benutzt es.

Nur um es klarzustellen.........

As you yourself have pointed out on several occasions, the bulk of the
readers and writers in r.o.f.f. are American. It should come as no surprise
that we communicate in American English. To be sure, no one is barred (or
even discouraged, to the best of my recollection) from using any other
dialect or even another language, but the chances of communicating anything
useful to a wide audience in the process diminish rapidly. More
specifically (in this instance), English is the only language I speak.....or
read.....beyond a few stock phrases.

Wolfgang



Doubtless all true, I was merely pointing out that just because you or
anybody else is not aware of an expression, word, or particular usage,
does not mean that it is does not exist.

That is a delusion.

MC

Newbie Question: What hopper pattern?
 

"Mike" wrote in message
oups.com...
On 9 Nov, 18:09, "Wolfgang" wrote:
"Mike" wrote in message

oups.com...



On 9 Nov, 16:20, "Wolfgang" wrote:
"MC" wrote in message

...

Also, the fly Oakiedokey posted has a normal chenille or wool body;

http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flyt.../3198fotw.html

which is why in my opinion it wont work very well.

Just yesterday, that wasn't an opinion, it was a fact. In either
case,
one
supposes it must be a great comfort, in a life that reportedly has so
few,
to know that one can still trump the many years of other people's
combined
experience with a simple statement unencumbered (thus far, anyway) by
experience of one's own.

Dressed with the right poly yarn, which is hydrophobic, it will work
a
lot
better.

Dressed with a bit of much deserved humility, this would work much
better.

Wolfgang

What relevance has humility to the properties of fly-dressing
materials?

What relevance have your delusions to fact?

Wolfgang

None, I have no delusions.

Then it is just a simple and inescapable fact that Joe's Hopper doesn't work
very well, eh?

Wolfgang

Newbie Question: What hopper pattern?
 

"MC" wrote in message ...
Wolfgang wrote:
"Mike" wrote in message
oups.com...

Man sagt auch schleppen................... Ist wohl nicht sonderlich
bekannt in Amerika, aber fast jeder hier benutzt es.

Nur um es klarzustellen.........

As you yourself have pointed out on several occasions, the bulk of the
readers and writers in r.o.f.f. are American. It should come as no
surprise that we communicate in American English. To be sure, no one is
barred (or even discouraged, to the best of my recollection) from using
any other dialect or even another language, but the chances of
communicating anything useful to a wide audience in the process diminish
rapidly. More specifically (in this instance), English is the only
language I speak.....or read.....beyond a few stock phrases.

Wolfgang

Doubtless all true, I was merely pointing out that just because you or
anybody else is not aware of an expression, word, or particular usage,
does not mean that it is does not exist.

Oh, is that all you were doing? Silly us......we thought it was someting
else.

That is a delusion.

My, my, how cleverly you turn these little observations back on us. And we,
poor benighted sods, NEVER see it coming.

Wolfgang

Newbie Question: What hopper pattern?
 

In point of fact I did not say that Joe´s Hopper doesn´t work very
well. I said

QUOTE


Mike
View profile
More options 8 Nov, 21:52
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.fishing.fly
From: Mike
Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2007 12:52:33 -0800
Local: Thurs 8 Nov 2007 21:52
Subject: Newbie Question: What hopper pattern?
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On 8 Nov, 21:18, BJ Conner wrote:

On Nov 7, 12:55 pm, mdk77 wrote:

Any recommendations on a hopper pattern? I've used Dave's Hopper and
had some success, but wondered if there were other patterns that were
worth trying. Thanks in advance for your advice.

I recommend Joe's Hopper. Easy to tie and good for trout and
bluegill.http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flyt.../3198fotw.html

If you shoot or have friends who hunt turkeys matched wing feathers
are needed to tie Joes Hopper. One turkey may result in a lifetime
supply.

That fly does not work very well, because it either floats too high,
or sinks. Hoppers sit with their bodies in the film.Chenille bodied
flies are not usually much use as dry flies, even when treated with
various floatants.

MC

UNQUOTE

because the fly he posted the link to has a chenille or wool body.

This dressing will work better;

http://www.westfly.com/patterns/dry/joeshopper.shtml

As will this one, which is the original version from Joe Brooks the
inventor of the fly;

http://www.telusplanet.net/public/cn...0001.htm#fom12

if he had wanted to use chenille or wool, because he thought it was
better, then I am sure he would have done so.

MC