Macedonians Invented Fly-Fishing

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  • The LION will ROAR
    Senior Member
    • Jan 2009
    • 3231

    Macedonians Invented Fly-Fishing

    Many credit the first recorded use of an artificial fly to the Roman Claudius Aelianus near the end of the 2nd century. He described the practice of Macedonian anglers on the Astraeus River:

    ...they have planned a snare for the fish, and get the better of them by their fisherman's craft. . . . They fasten red wool. . . round a hook, and fit on to the wool two feathers which grow under a cock's wattles, and which in color are like wax. Their rod is six feet long, and their line is the same length. Then they throw their snare, and the fish, attracted and maddened by the color, comes straight at it, thinking from the pretty sight to gain a dainty mouthful; when, however, it opens its jaws, it is caught by the hook, and enjoys a bitter repast, a captive.
    In his book Fishing from the Earliest Times, however, William Radcliff (1921) gave the credit to Martial (Marcus Valerius Martialis), born some two hundred years before Aelianus, who wrote:
    ...Who has not seen the scarus rise, decoyed and killed by fraudful flies...
    The last word, somewhat indistinct in the original, is either "mosco" (moss) or "musca" (fly) but catching fish with fraudulent moss seems unlikely.[1]
    Last edited by The LION will ROAR; 05-06-2014, 12:57 AM.
    The Macedonians originates it, the Bulgarians imitate it and the Greeks exploit it!
  • The LION will ROAR
    Senior Member
    • Jan 2009
    • 3231

    #2


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    The Macedonians originates it, the Bulgarians imitate it and the Greeks exploit it!

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    • The LION will ROAR
      Senior Member
      • Jan 2009
      • 3231

      #3
      Macedonia using a form of fly-fishing to catch a fish 2000 years ago
      THE 150th anniversary of trout arriving in Tasmania was yesterday celebrated at the Australian Fly Fishing Museum at...



      Fly fishing goes all the way back to around 200 AD.
      The origin of fly fishing revealed at Fishing-NC.com Discover the little known history of catching fish on flies.

      The first reference to it was written by Aelian who was born around 170 AD. Early in his life he knew nothing of the sea. In his early writing "On The Nature Of Animals" he writes about a certain way of catching fish supposedly invented by the Macedonians. A particular fish that runs through the Astraeus River in Macedonia happens to feed on flies that are peculiar to that region. These flies are not found anywhere else. The natives of the land called this species of fly Hippouros. These flies seek their food over the river and are never very far away from the fish in the river below. Because of this it is relatively easy for the fish to jump out of the water, catching the flies in their mouths and eating them.
      It is from seeing this that the Macedonian's got the idea to use these flies to catch the fish. However, because it is unclean for their people to touch this species of fly they had to develop a way to catch the fish without actually handling the flies. So what they did was fasten red wool around a hook. They then fixed onto the wool two feathers which grow under a cock's wattles. The rod they used was six feet long and the line was also the same length. They then threw the line in the direction of the flies. The fish seeing this line which is disguised to look like the fly think they are going to have a nice meal and instead are caught by the fisherman's trap. Fly fishing was developed.
      It should be pointed out that according to accounts of what the fly looked like and what the actual "bait" looked like it would seem that the Macedonians didn't try to imitate the fly exactly, as the fly color was yellow and the bait color was red. Some speculation is that the fly changed color when near water but this was never proven.
      For those interested, the story above was taken from Radcliffe's "Fishing From The Earliest Times," which was published in 1921. This version of the story is the one most often printed with no credit given to the original author. Radcliffe himself states that he adapted this translation from "Lambert's Angling Literature in England" first published in 1881. Prior to this there was a Latin translation which was printed in 1558. This printing however wasn't discovered until 1834.
      The Macedonians originates it, the Bulgarians imitate it and the Greeks exploit it!

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      • vicsinad
        Senior Member
        • May 2011
        • 2337

        #4
        From Page 20 of the October 1952 issue of Pennsylvania Angler:

        ANGLERS who enjoy fishing with
        artificial flies do not always
        realize that fly fishing began as early
        as the second century, when a Roman
        author described a crude sort of wet
        fly then used on rivers in Macedonia.

        Fly fishing, however, did not reach
        its golden age until the days of Izaac
        Walton and Charles Cotton, a generation
        or so after Columbus discovered
        America.

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        • George S.
          Senior Member
          • Aug 2009
          • 10116

          #5
          I never realized that Reaching for your fly has got connotations.
          "Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
          GOTSE DELCEV

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