SEVERAL SEASONS of tying and fishing blue uprights finally exhausted my supply of dyed dark blue mallard breast feathers, but rather than go through the messy, time-consuming trouble of dying another lot, I decided to search for a substitute.

At first I found nothing suitable, but then one day I had the idea of trying to reverse a dark, metallic-green feather from the neck of a Chinese pheasant rooster, just to see what would happen. To my surprise, I found the feather lost its metallic green luster when reversed and became dark blue-gray in color, very close to the shade I was trying to match. Not only that, but it had a brown quill, similar to the color found on the belly of natural Callibaetis spinners.

The pheasant feather was a little harder to work with than mallard breast, but once reversed it seemed to hold its shape even better. And when I tested it on the Atlantic salmon in Hosmer Lake, the pheasant pattern proved at least the equal of the old mallard breast imitation.

Chinese pheasant rooster neck feathers were common and easy to get when I began using them. Many fly shops sold pheasant skins with the neck feathers still attached, and I had several bird-hunting friends who also brought me feathers.

But pheasant hunting has changed greatly in recent years. So much habitat has been lost that wild birds are now far less common than they used to be. These days, hunters are often forced to rely on farm-raised birds, released for sporting purposes like hatchery trout. For some reason — probably dietary deficiencies — these farm-raised birds seem unable to grow usable neck feathers.

Not surprisingly, the disappearance of wild Chinese pheasant from the fields also has meant the disappearance of their skins from the shelves of fly shops. Since the sparse, ragged neck feathers of farm-raised birds are useless for tying, they are almost always trimmed off before the skins of farm-raised birds are placed on sale.

I wasn't aware of any of this until I used up my supply of neck feathers and went looking for more. It was an unpleasant surprise to discover they were simply no longer available, either commercially or from any of my bird-hunting friends. If I wanted to tie more Blue Uprights — and I did — it looked as if I would have to go back to using dyed mallard breast.

But I refused to give up. Each time I visited a new fly shop I would check to see if it had any wild pheasant skins with neck feathers still attached. If none were on display, I would ask if there were any in the back room.

The answer always was no — until one day I walked into a new shop in the Olympic Peninsula town of Port Angeles. The young proprietor was friendly and we struck up a conversation while I examined the materials he had on display. He asked if there was something in particular I was looking for and I told him my sad story about Chinese pheasant rooster neck feathers.

He grinned. "I've got a whole bunch of them in the back room," he said. "I still get a few wild-bird skins with neck feathers, but I always cut them off because I didn't know anybody used them for anything. I've been saving them up and wondering what to do with them."

He went into the back room and came out with a large plastic bag filled with some of the best-looking Chinese rooster neck feathers I'd seen in a long time. Delighted, I dumped the contents on the shop counter and went through it, setting aside the very best feathers until I had a pile large enough to last the rest of my life.

"How much?" I asked.

"Oh, how about five bucks for the lot?"

It was a deal, one of the best purchases of fly-tying materials I've ever made.

 

EVEN AFTER SPLITTING THE FEATHERS WITH MY SON, I still probably have enough to last the rest of my fly-tying life. But the Blue Upright has another ingredient as important as the feather used for the tail, body and wing — and that, of course, is the hackle.

The hackle situation is the opposite from that of neck feathers. The advent of "genetically engineered" roosters has made it possible to acquire dry-fly hackle of superior or excellent quality almost anywhere, provided you can afford it. That wasn't always true; when I started tying Hatchmatcher-style flies, most tyers relied on necks from Indian or Philippine gamecocks. These varied widely in quality, and sometimes necks that were advertised as suitable for dry flies turned out to be otherwise, especially if ordered sight-unseen from a mail-order supplier.

In those days everyone had his eye out for good hackle. That continuing quest led to one of the strangest episodes in the history of the Washington Fly Fishing Club.

It began when sheriff's deputies, acting on an anonymous tip, raided an illegal cockfight at an abandoned mink farm in a rural area south of Seattle. The deputies handed out citations to the cockfight sponsors and seized fifty-four live gamecocks and three dead losers to use for evidence in court. The live birds were held in captivity; the dead ones went into the freezer.

When the case went to trial, an attorney representing the birds' owners told the judge their owners wanted them back. The prosecutor argued the gamecocks met the state's definition of illegal gambling equipment and shouldn't be returned. The judge sided with the prosecutor, whereupon county authorities ordered the birds destroyed.

Sixteen roosters already had died in captivity; the thirty-eight survivors were put to death by lethal injection. The county then offered the carcasses for sale to the highest public bidder. Ever alert to the possibilities of obtaining some premium dry-fly hackle, officers of the Washington Fly Fishing Club decided to submit a bid of $1 per rooster.

It turned out that was the only bid received, so the club ended up the proud owner of thirty-eight dead gamecocks. Four were in such bad shape they were thrown into the garbage. The rest were separated from their feathers by club members at a unique "skinning party," during which copious amounts of Scotch whiskey were consumed.

Despite having been skinned by club members under the influence of single-malt whiskey, the gamecock necks contained some of the prettiest dry-fly hackle you ever saw. They were auctioned at a club meeting and many fly tyers went home toting plastic bags full of hackle. The auction proceeds were used to send deserving kids to summer camp.

Some of those hackles ended up on Blue Uprights. Who says the justice system doesn't work?

There is evidence, mostly anecdotal but still persuasive, that Callibaetis hatches have declined in recent years in waters all along the West Coast, from California to Canada.

The hatches that still occur also now appear to come earlier than ever, peaking two or three weeks before they once did. This is especially true in high-elevation lakes, where the ice cover that used to remain until late May is now often gone by the beginning of the month — which might explain why the hatches are earlier and smaller. Global warming is a likely culprit, but other factors also may be at work. Many waters that once supported enormous mayfly hatches have long been managed as put-and-take fisheries, routinely overstocked with voracious hatchery trout that over the years have made great inroads into mayfly populations. Oil slicks from outboard motors undoubtedly have contributed to declining insect populations in other waters, and silt kicked up by unthinking float-tube fishermen in shallow lakes has surely smothered the eggs of many aquatic insects.

Hosmer Lake has not been exempt from this. Its mayfly hatches are still more prolific than those of most other waters, but nowhere near as intense as they once were. Hosmer also faces many problems in addition to declining hatches. Some years ago the lake's population of sea-run Atlantic salmon was replaced by true landlocked salmon from Sebago Lake in Maine, and these fish have fallen far short of their predecessors in terms of sporting qualities. The landlocks do not live as long, grow as large, rise as willingly or fight as well as the sea-run fish, and their introduction has led to a decline in the fishing from extraordinary to merely ordinary.

Other problems are due to irresponsible management. For reasons that defy explanation, the state began stocking brook trout in Hosmer Lake, which already had a small self-sustaining population of brook trout. As a result of the stocking, the brook trout population exploded; swarms of fry appeared in the shallows, gobbling up nearly all the food in sight. As numbers increased, average size decreased, and now the lake has many brook trout in the eight- to ten-inch size range. On my last trip I caught more brook trout than salmon for the first time ever. The exploding brook trout population also is surely one reason for the decline of the lake's Callibaetis hatches.

As this is written, there is a movement afoot in Oregon to end stocking of "exotic" (non-native) fish species. This would clearly be wise policy in many instances, but because salmon are unable to spawn successfully in Hosmer Lake, it would mean the end of the lake's unique, highly popular Atlantic salmon fishery. Brook trout, on the other hand, can and do spawn successfully at Hosmer, so in the absence of salmon they would have the entire lake to themselves — an ironic result, since brook trout also are an exotic species in Oregon.

For all these reasons, the future of the Hosmer Lake fishery appears highly uncertain.

Equally uncertain is the future of the scenic area around the lake, which is under increasing attack by corrupt Forest Service bureaucrats. The problem began with congressional approval of a so-called "fee demonstration" program requiring people using Forest Service campgrounds, including the two at Hosmer Lake, to pay for the privilege of occupying property they already own as American citizens. In authorizing this dubious, highly unpopular program, Congress apparently overlooked a statutory provision offering liability protection to owners of lands used for public recreation; the provision applies only if such use is free, so the protection was lost as soon as fees were charged.

This exposed the Forest Service to the threat of lawsuits from persons injured by falling trees or other campground accidents. The Forest Service, however, saw this as an opportunity rather than a problem: an opportunity to cut more trees. After all, if a campground has no trees, then campers can't be injured by falling timber.

The Bend-Ft. Rock District of the Deschutes National Forest, where Hosmer Lake is located, began holding timber sales in campgrounds. Campgrounds at Davis Lake, Crane Prairie, Big and Little Lava Lakes and other spots in the Oregon Cascades were logged, leaving once scenic, shaded spots with about as much outdoor ambience as a strip-mall parking lot. The loss of wildlife and wildlife habitat was enormous.

All this happened without protest, but when the Forest Service announced plans to log the campgrounds at Hosmer Lake it ran into opposition. A group of Hosmer Lake anglers and campers called the Friends of Hosmer filed multiple appeals opposing the logging plans.

The appeals slowed but did not stop the destructive forces at work. As bureaucrats wrangled, logging crews chipped away little by little at the campgrounds, cutting more so-called "hazardous" trees each year (by Forest Service definition, any tree in any national forest may be considered hazardous).

Finally, in the fall of 2001, the last appeal was decided. Despite unchallenged evidence that Forest Service officials had submitted false testimony and violated both federal law and regulations, the Friends of Hosmer appeal was denied. That was no surprise; under federal regulations, the Forest Service (or the Farce Service, as I now think of it) is allowed to sit in judgment of appeals against its own actions. Guess how most appeals turn out.

So everything at Hosmer is threatened: Its breathtakingly beautiful surroundings, its mayfly and caddis hatches, its unique population of Atlantic salmon. If you want to enjoy any of these, the best advice is to go there soon.

Maybe I'll see you there. I'll be the one fishing a Blue Upright.