It was during the days when B-17 s,B-24s, Mustangs, and Lightningsroamed the skies over Europe andthe Pacific that a letter arrived for mydad, addressed to "Joe Messinger, FlyTyer, Morgantown, West Virgiriia."It read, "Dear Mr. Messinger, Pleasesend me more of your deer-hair drakeflies. The trout up in Canada. findthem to be ... irresistible."

Americawas consumed byWorldWar II and many of our country'sfishermen were overseas fighting in thatconflict. Payne, Dickerson and Garri-son built fine fly rods then and someprogress was being made in the field offly tying. But, for the most part, theevents of the war overshadowed anyother achievement worthy of attention.

Art Neu, a friend of my father'sand a champion fly caster, had writtento dad asking him if he had any newtrout-fly patterns that he could send toa friend who was hospitalized at thetime. Dad had been tying a deer-hair

The history and tying techniques behind oneof the sport's standard dry-fly patterns

drake pattern for trout since the late1930s, but had not yet settled on aname for it, and he sent some of thedrakes to Neu's friend, Ken Lockwood.When Lockwood recovered from hisillness, he headed for Canada and somefishing. When he returned, he wrote tomy father, requesting more of the flieshe described as "irresistible."The namestuck, and in the years to come, thefly became a favorite offly fishermenworld wide.

My father was born in 1892, andgrew up in the mountains and alongthe streams of West Virginia. ThePotomac River flows near the smalltown of Beryl, where he was born, andit provided a stimulating setting for hisearly interest in nature. Many summerdays of his youth were spent on and inthe Potomac, both fishing and observingand learning basics that later provideda foundation for the course of his life.

As a teenager, my father workedas a coal miner and was soon after called

AMEIDCANANGLER------------ 54

by Joe Messenger

to serve in the U.S. Army, during WorldWar I. While in France in 1919, hereceived a serious wound. He eventu-ally recovered, and returned home atthe war's end to resume his work as aminer. He began tying flies before hismilitary duty, and upon his returnfrom the war he continued fishingand fly tying with a renewed outlookand purpose.

Dad's war injuries returned totrouble him in the years that followedand he spent several of those years inveteran's hospitals, undergoing opera-tions and rehabilitation. He was nolonger able to work in the coal mines.

Thedoctorstoldhim that becauseof the injuries to and resulting infectionin his hip joint, hewould be confined toa wheelchair or, at best, he would haveto use crutches for the rest of his life.But, dad had other ideas. The doctorsreleased him and told him togo chaserainbows, and that's just what he had inmind, but his rainbows were of the

finny variety.He modified his old Hudson car

so he could operate the clutch with ahand lever. He removed the back seat,built a fly-tying bench in its place. Liveroosters were carried in a coop in thetrunk of the car, and, no matter howobjectionable it might have been to theroosters, he plucked hackles ashe neededthem. When a rooster was picked cleanof its hackles, a streamside chickendinner often followed.

Dad made screens to fit in therear windows of the Hudson and in-stalled a bright dome light over histying bench. The light attracted flyinginsects at night. They would alight onthe screens and Dad studied them andmade drawings of them, later at-tempting to create imitations of themwithhook,featherandfur.Withtheaidof crutches ,hefished bydayand workedon drawings and tying at night. In time,he was able to get around well usingonly a cane.

from the spool to rhetyers teeth and thetag end is taken around the hook shankand hair. Asingleoverhand knot is thentied to secure the hair to the hook. Thevise is rotated 180 degrees and thethreads (tag and standing ends) arecrossed in front of the bunch ofhairandbehind the hook shank so that thestanding end is to the tyer's left and thetag end isto his right. Pressure is appliedlaterally and down which locks the hairin place and compacts it, while alsoseparating the colors. The next bunchof hair (darker color for the back andwhite for the belly) is now ready to betied on. About six bunches of hair areused to build the body for a size 12Irresistible. The method creates a verycompact and durable fly body. It alsoallows lateral as well as radial colorseparation.

If you are confused, you are notalone. I have attempted to explain thistechnique to other tyers for years nowwith little success. It's somewhat likeJ

-------MAy· JUNE1991

My father's earliest efforts at flytying involved bass patterns. Frogs, afavorite food of bass, inspired a lure hecreated with deer hair, called a BucktailFrog (this fly is popul4rly knoum tIS theMessinger Frog.--ed.). The early part ofthis century offered little in the way ofinformation or materials for fly tyingand because deer hair was readilyavailable, dad made good use of it.Another bass pattern he created inthe 1920s was called a Nitehummer.It had a deer-hair tail, wings andbeard, and the body was clipped deerhair. This pattern was the founda-tion of the Irresistible.

UNUSUAL TECHNIQUES

The method dad created for tying deerhair was both unique and original.Bodies are tied by placing the hook inthe vise vertically and with the lefthand, holding the hair parallel to thehookshank.The tying thread isbrought

55

tying to explain to someone how to patyour head, rub your belly and whistle"Dixie" all at the same time. (In asubsequent article about the BucktailFrog, I will describe the technique withgraphic detail of the individual steps.)I've made a video tape that hopefullyclears up most of the confusion.

hackle and white abdomen has con-sistently taken more trout for methan any of the other colors.

From an entomological stand-point, the Irresistible is certainly notexact. But, that's notso bad. The Adams,perhaps the most-often-used dry fly of

chances are very good that the fly wastied by my father. It could be one ofmine, but he was a much more prolifictyer than I am, so it is probably one ofhis Irresistibles.

Aesthetically, I think Irresistiblestied with a dark back-and-white belly

WHICH MAYFLY IS IT?

In my father's own words, "The Irre-sistible is an imitation of an egg-laden female drake fly." I am not sureexactly which species of drake fly it isintended to imitate. The originalpattern has brown deer hair tails andwings, blue-grey (dun) hair for theback and white deer hair on theunderside. The hackle is a dyed claretor wine color. Later, he offered theIrresistible with a brown back andhackle and ginger back and hackle.

The major drake hatch here inWest Virginia, and the east, is the greendrake (Ephemera guttul4ta). The Irre-sistible does not closely resemble thenatural in either shape or color. There isa western brown drake that is chunkierand more compact than the easternvariety, but Dad never fished in theWest, so I don't think that would haveinfluenced his choice of shape or color.

Although I don't know the rea-son for his choice of shape and color, Ido know that fishermen have beencatching trout on the Irresistible forabout fifty years. I realize that if some-one has a favorite fly,they will catch themajority of their fish on that parternsimply because it is used more oftenand with more confidence than others.Onmanyoccasionsovertheyearswhile

I

trout fishing, I have given.equal time tothe Irresistible tied in a wide variety

LOf colors, including pink, but thesmokey-blue pattern with claret

AMEIDCANANGLER------------

all time, does not closely match a spe-cific insect, yet countless trout havebeen taken on the Adams due to itseffectiveness.There are many flypatternsthat fit into this category.

are more pleasing than those that havea body spun from a single color, butmore importantly, dad's tying methodoffered a fly with great durability.Spinning or stacking makes use of asingle thread to attach the hair to thehook shank through the length ofthe body. The thread is then tied offwith a single knot, either a whipfinish or a half hitch. If the singlethread holding the hair to the hookbreaks or the single knot fails, thestructural integrity of the entire bodyis lost and the fly can come apart.

My father's method used amodified square knot to attach eachbunch of hair to the hook. Smalleramounts of hair are used in each bunchbecause of the two colors that make upthe fly body. If six bunches of hair areused to build the body, then sevenknots (the seventh being a square knottied to finish things off) are needed tohold the hair on the hook shank. If thethread should break because of the

TYING NUANCES

The basicdifference between my father'soriginal tie and those tied by others isthe method of tying on the body. As Iexplained earlier, dad's technique al-lowed lateral color separation and withfew exceptions, the Irresistibles he tiedhad white abdomens. Spinning deerhair onto a hook does not allow thislateral separation. Stacking does makelateral color separation possible, but Ihave never seen a contemporary Irre-sistible tied with a stacked body. I amonly mildly familiar with the stackingtechnique, and am not sure that themethod works well on size 12or smallerhooks. If you are in possession of anIrresistiblewith lateral color separation,

56

Here's how I tie the Irresistible. Using asize8 through 16 either Mustad 7957B,9671 or Tiemco 5262 hook, attach size8/0 (6/0 for size 8 & 10 hooks) black,polyester thread to the midpoint of thehook shank and wind it back to a pointdirectly above the barb of the hook.Then wind it forward a third of theshank length.

Select a medium amount offine(mask or perhaps coastal), brown deerhair for the tail and pick out the fuzzand shorter hair.

Place the hair in a stacker andeven up the ends. Set the hair atop thehook shank and secure it with severalthread wraps at the point where thebobbin now hangs. The tail should bethe same length as the hook shank.

Apply slight upward pressureon the hair and wind the thread backto the point above the barb. Thenwrap the thread up the hookshank tothe midpoint and make whip finish.

stresses involved in fishing, very little, ifany, damage results. Also, the threadused for tying with dad's method isheavier and stronger than that usuallyused to spin deer hair on small flies. Forthe last five years or so, I have usedKevlar thread.

The method of tying the tail andwings are the same no matter whichbody-tying technique is used. As far asI know, my father never owned a fly-tying bobbin; he preferred to place thespool of thread on a finish nail driveninto his bench top and control thethread pressure with his fmgers. As amatter of fact, he didn't even use a visefor most of the trout flypatterns that hetied, but the Irresistible is an exception.Because I'm not the staunch individualthat he was, I use a bobbin and vise.

TYING INSTRUCTIONS

Don't tie on the wings at this stage ofthe operation.

Apply a drop or two of Dave'sFlexament over the thread wraps andallow it to dry.

Now tie on the body using fairlycoarse deer hair, which trims and floatsbetter than the fine stuff. I use my dad'smethod of tying which I explainedbriefly earlier to bring the body two-thirds of the way up the hook shank.Whatever method you use to tie thebody, make sure that you cover thewinding at the base of tail with thehair for the body. If you don't coverthose wraps; the thread holding thetail on will show and make for a badlooking fly.

Next, take the fly out of the viseand begin trimming the body withstraight scissors and taper it back towardthe tail.

After the body is roughly shapedwith the scissors, I make use of a tech-nique that I learned from a friend,Jimmy Nix. (I've also acquired somebad habits from Jimmy that are not fly-fishing or fly-tying related, but this is agood one.) Use a razor blade for thefinal shaping of the body. (Razor blades,especially double-edge blades, are extremelysharp, souse caution whenhandlingthem.-ed.) Quite subtle changes can be madewith the blade and with some practice,a nicely-trimmed deer-hair body shapeCan be achieved.

Trim the underside of the bodya little thinner than the back. Thisexposes more of the hook gape andincreases the fly's hooking ability. Italso helps make the fly ride better inthe water.

The front of the body should betrimmed to a flat face or shoulder. Youmay shorten the body somewhat bydoing this, but if you have taken thebody two-thirds of the way up the hook

shank, this will allow you to removesome of the hair in front and still havea well proportioned finished fly. Theflat face or shoulder helps the hacklestand at right angles to the hook shank,which helps the fly ride better in thewater and improves it's appearance.

Next, de on the wings, using thesame type of hair asyou selected for thetail. Use about twice the amount ofhairthat you used for the tail.

Clean the fuzz and short hairsfrom the wing hair and stack it.

Tie on the 8/0 thread and bringit back to a point halfway between theeye of the hookand the body. Makethewings the same length as the hook shank.

Hold the hair, tip it toward theeye with your right hand and takethree or four loops of thread aroundit with your left hand. Begin withsoft or loose loops and gradually addtension as you proceed.

Release the hair with your righthand and grasp it by the butt ends withyour left hand. Hold the hair firmly inplace and take about six more tightturns around it with the thread.

Stroke the hair back away fromthe hook eye and make five or sixtight turns against the front portionof the hair. This enables the wings tostand upright.

Now trim the butt ends of thehair as dose to the hook shank aspossible without cutting the thread.Takeseveral more turns of thread aroundthe trimmed ends.

Bunch the hair up atop the hookshank, and, using a bodkin, divide itinto two equal amounts.

While holding the right wing,take two turns of thread around the leftwing. Now hold the left wing and taketwo turns around the right wing. Makesure the loops of thread are down near

(Continued on page 63)

57 -------MAy· JUNE1991

(Continued from page 57)

The Irresistible has been around for along time. Through the years it hasfound a place in the fly boxes of many

the base of the wings. Don't make theturns so tight that they Causethe hair toflare a lot.

Make figure-eight wraps aroundthe wings and the hook shankro secureeverything and you're ready to tie onthe hackle.

The Irresistible looks better andrides better in the water when it isheavily hackled, so, depending uponthe quality of the hackle that is used,select two or three hackles with fibersone and a half times as long as thehook gape.

Strip the fluff and web from thehackle stems. Placethehackles together,with the butt portions even.

With the dull side of the hacklefacing forward, tie on the hackle stemsin the area of the fly between the wingsand body and then wind the threadforward to secure the hackle stems be-tween the wings and the eye of thehook. Clip off the excess stems-I usea scalpel or razor blade for this. Apply adrop of Flexarnent to this area andallow it to dry.

Wind the hackles forward, be-ginning with the hackle nearest thewings and take several turns ofhackle infront of the wings. Tie the hackle offwith two wraps and dip off the re-maining tip.

Continue winding the hackles,trying not to overlap the hackle that hasbeen previously wound.

After the last hackle has beensecured, pull all the hackle fibersback, and take several more threadwraps near the eye of the hook. Ap-ply a whip finish.

Place a drop of head cement onthe thread, and you are finished,

fishermen and it has taken lots of troutfor them. This fly is in it's glory in fastand turbulent water that will sink moststandard dry flies, and when it's tiedproperly, the Irresistible offers durabil-ityandlow-maintenanceperformance.

Sure, I'm biased. Dad was myhero and my best friend. He never hadan axe to grind with anyone and fameand fortune were not his objectives inlife.The fliesthat he created were simplya product of his best efforts to enhancethe time he spent on a mountain troutstream or a pretty bass lake or river.

My father died when I was 22years old. He was 74. I'm now 46 andI still miss him. I wish some day I couldpack up my gear, take along a little extralunch and head for one of his favoritetrout streams here in West Virginia. I'dgive awhistle, and he would join me forsome lunch and later we would try ourluck with the local trout.

As usual, he would open up hisfly box and take out several flies for meto use. I'm sure one of them would behis deer-hair drake fly.I know he'd handit to mewith a little grin and say, "Here,Joe, try this one. Maybe these trout willfind it to be ... simply irresistible."

Joe Messinger is a second-generation professionalfly tyer. His father, Joe Messinger, Sr., originateda number of deer-hair flies for bass and trout. Ofthese flies, patterns such as the Irresistible andBucktail Frog have become standards thatare tiedand fished widely today. Joe stiU ties these patternsusing the techniques originated by hisfather. We'llpresent the tying techniques in greater detail in afoture issue when he describes the Bucktail Frog.

63

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