Amadou: From the Forests of Transylvania to Your Fly Vest

When hikers discovered Ötzi the Iceman in the Alps in 1991, they found the naturally preserved body of a man who had died about 5,300 years earlier. In his belt pouch was tinder prepared from Fomes fomentarius. Today, anglers use the same material, known as amadou, to dry their flies.

Gathered from the forest

Often called tinder fungus or hoof fungus, Fomes fomentarius grows on trees and has a hard outer crust. The soft, fibrous layer beneath it is what’s worked into amadou.

The fungus grows in Canadian forests too, including here in Quebec. We first worked with locally harvested amadou for our wooden fly boxes, preparing it by hand in Montreal.

A living craft in Transylvania

In Corund, also known by its Hungarian name Korond, a handful of families still make amadou by hand. They gather the fungus from old Carpathian beech forests, selecting specimens with an inner layer suitable for their work.

Back in the workshop, they separate that layer from the hard crust and the spore-bearing tubes beneath it. They work it by hand, stretch it and let it dry. The resulting material is soft and flexible enough to make hats, bags and fly-drying patches.

How to dry a fly with amadou

If you’ve just landed a fish, rinse any mucus from the fly. Then place it between the two amadou surfaces and give it a gentle squeeze to draw out excess water. If you’d like to use floatant, apply it after drying the fly.

After fishing, leave the patch open to air dry. If you condition the leather, keep the conditioner away from the amadou.

Made by hand in Montreal

For our Amadou Dry Fly Patch, we use thick amadou from Transylvania and pair it with vegetable-tanned leather in our Montreal workshop. The leather protects the amadou between uses and develops a patina over seasons on the water.