The varying legal definitions of "fly"

FAOL Community Fly Anglers Online
1

Ray K asked me where my definition of “fly” was from. It was the Maine regs. However, for each state, and even within states, there seem to be different definitions of “fly”.

Here are a few:

PA
Fishing may be done with artificial flies and streamers constructed of natural or synthetic materials, so long as all flies are constructed in a normal fashion on a single hook with components wound on or about the hook. Anything other than these items is prohibited.

OR
Artificial Fly: A fly is a hook, dressed with conventional fly tying materials. The affixed materials may be natural or synthetic. Tied in conjunction with other materials, the following items may be part of the fly: wire (lead or other metal) used for weighting the fly, dumbbell eyes or beads (metal, glass or plastic). A fly is not a hook to which sinkers, molded weights, spinners, spoons or similar attractors are attached.

MOMontauk State Park
In waters designated fly fishing only, a fly shall be constructed on a single point hook of feathers, tinsel, chenille, yarn, fur, silk, rayon or nylon thread or floss, with or without a spinner.
CO
“Artificial flies and lures” means devices made entirely of, or a combination of, natural or
synthetic non-edible, non-scented (regardless if the scent is added in the manufacturing process
or applied afterward), materials such as wood, plastic, silicone, rubber, epoxy, glass, hair, metal,
feathers, or fiber, designed to attract fish. This definition does not include anything defined as bait
in #100.B below.

NY
Artificial Fly means a hook with no more than two points dressed with feathers, hair, thread, tinsel or any similar material to which no hooks, spinners, spoons or similar devices have been added.

NH
Fly: A hook dressed with feathers, hair, thread, tinsel or any similar
material to which no spinner, spoon or similar device is added.

Nova Scotia
ARTIFICIAL FLY?a single hook or
double hook or two single hooks dressed with
materials likely to attract fish, and to which no
weight, spinning device, or natural bait is
attached.

New Brunswick
Artificial Fly
Means a single hook, a double hook or two single hooks that are dressed with materials
likely to attract fish and to which no weight, spinning device or natural bait is attached.

VT
Fly: A single pointed hook, dressed with feathers, hair, thread,
tinsel, or any similar material wound on or about the hook to
which no hooks, spinners, spoons or similar devices have been
added.

I’ll bet we could find many more different definitions. Here is one I find interesting, but it is not a legal definition:

Fly: An imitation of a fish food item, traditionally very light and made of hair, feathers and thread tied to a hook. Modern flies have many synthetic materials and often include lead to help them sink.

Fly fishing: A technique for fishing where the weight of the line is used to cast a very light weight fly that would not be heavy enough to be cast with a conventional spinning or casting rod.

That last definition of flyfishing throws Clousers and a lot of other flies out the window. Guess the source of it. :smiley:

2

for PA what does it mean by “constructed in a normal fasion?”

3

Overmywaders posted the general definition of a fly from the Oregon regs. Just to confuse us, there is another definition just for the “fly area” of the North Umpqua.

"all angling restricted to use of single barbless unweighted artificial fly. For the purposes of this rule, an
unweighted artificial fly is defined as: ?a conventional hook that is dressed with natural or artificial materials, and to
which no molded weight (such as split shot, jig heads or dumbbell eyes), metal wire, metal beads, bead chain eyes,
or plastic body are affixed, and to which no added weight, spinning or attractor device, or natural bait is attached.?

So in that area, a fly can’t have any metal wire , bead head etc. and you can only use one. But you can use a spinning rod there and you can’t in any other Oregon “flyfishing only” area. :roll:

4

Hi,
Hmmm, so that means a classic pheasant tail nymph is out, because of the copper wire ribbing but a gold ribbed hare’s ear is ok if you use gold tinsel but not gold wire. A PT with copper tinsel would be fine though, although all nymphs must be unweighted (no lead or copper body wraps). So, this is primarily wet and dry fly fishing only (if you consider unweighted nymphs as a form of wet fly fishing that is).

I remember when my brother was 16 and tying flies (a long time ago now) and he was told that the “rules” for flies in Nova Scotia had something about “no metal”. That made him wonder about his flies tied with tinsel? Could he get in trouble for using a fly with oval tinsel ribbing? He was very nervous about that, and so decided to only use thread and floss to rib his flies. For some reason he was fine with flat tinsel and knew you could use that, but the oval tinsel looked “too much line wire”, and that got him worried.

  • Jeff
5

Jeff,

Legally You are correct, but the purists on the North Umpqua would probably frown on any nymph. Only traditional unweighted steelhead wet flies, with a floating line, on the swing. Maybe a skated dry. Anything else is heresy. :wink:

6

Hi,

Ahhh, the purist. One who tells you that “You can’t do it wrong if you do it my way.” :lol:

  • Jeff
7

WWFF:

I ASSUME they mean it must be wound or attached on the hook like most fur, feather and assorted materials and secured with thread at some point in the construction. The PFBC used to have a line in the definition that specifically prohibited the use of molded facsimiles. In other words those tiny artificial bugs molded on a hook. I don’t know what today constitutes an illegal fly in PA but I wonder about those hot glue eggs and other stuff made by globing plastic or glue on a hook and calling it a fly.

I don’t worry about it anyhow because these regs only apply to the Catch & Release Fly Fishing Only sections where I do less than 5% of my fishing and besides…

…I don’t tie plastic flies.

:wink:

8

Given half the chance, I would have to ask some ‘official’ what is normal vs. paranormal?

Diane

9

We recently went through this in MN where the DNR is trying to simplify rules and clearly distinguish between artificials and bait and it is really tough. There are now artificial baits which are plastic creatures with scent and/or taste impregnated in them. If you browse through a Berkley catalog, you will see that they claim that some of the artificial baits are more attractive to fish than naturals. The definition of flies is even more complicated by things like tube flies, flies on double hooks, Waddington shanks etc. I have seen flies tied with cat gut and eelskin. Probably everyone has a couple of streamers which are created from a strip of rabbit hide with the attached fur. All these kind of things just throw a wrench into trying to define a fly or an artificial.