Trude

Royal Trude

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Tying Instructions

1.Attach 8-10 Golden Pheasant tippets for a tail. Keep the tips aligned. Tail segment should be about the length of the hook shank. Wrap the butts up to the midpoint of the shank.

2. Attach 3 peacock herls by the tips to the back half of the hook shank. Wrap the tips from the midpoint of the shank to the start of the tail.

3. Wrap the herls around the bobbin thread and make a herl rope. Wrap the herl rope about 3 turns around the rear shank, undo the rope and secure the herl wraps.

4. Tie in a strand of red floss and wrap the tying thread forward to a point about equivalent to 2/3’s of the base thread wrap.

5. Wrap the red floss forward and back and forward again to assure a smooth body. Secure the floss segment with a few thread wraps. Create another herl rope with the herl tags from the first segment. herl.

6. Wrap the second herl segment with 3 wraps of the herl rope and secure with thread wraps.

7. Trim the herl and floss tags and wrap a thread base to the front part of the hook shank.

8. Clip a small bundle of calf tail and even the tips in a stacker. Attach the hair to the top of the shank directly in front of the second herl segment. A first loop around the hair bundle helps to keep the hair from working around the shank. The length of the hair wing should equal the hook shank.

9. Trim the wing butts at an angle and secure the butts with thread wraps.

10. Attach a brown hackle by the butt end directly in front of the wing. The fibers should be about 1 1/2 x’s the hook gap.

11. Wrap the hackle to just behing the eye. Secure the tag end and trim excess. Complete the fly with a whip finish or a couple of half hitches.

Materials to Order Material, click the link
Hook	TMC 9300 #12-18
Thread	Danville Black 6/0
Body	Peacock Herl and Red Floss
Tail	Golden Pheasant Tippets
Wing	White Calf tail
Hackle	Brown Hackle

Carter H. Harrison

Trude

The Trude is a down-wing dry pattern usually tied with a calf tail hair wing and a heavy hackle collar. Originally, the Trude was a streamer fly designed by Carter H. Harrison of Chicago, Illinois, in the summer of 1901 while he was a guest at the A.S. Trude Ranch near Big Springs, Idaho. Mr. Harrison was the mayor of Chicago from 1897-1906 and 1911-1915.

The fly was created as a joke using red yarn from a cabin rug for the body and hair from a red spaniel for the wing. The “joke” became an instant success and created great interest in the use of hair for a wing. The fly was adapted to a wet fly dressing by including a tail and switching to Fox Squirrel tail for the wing.

Original Trude
Hooks: 3/0 or 4/0 Streamer hook, later a wet fly hook
Thread: Black
Body: Red Worsted Yarn from a rug, later Red Wool
Wing: Red Spaniel Dog Hair, later Fox Squirrel Tail
Hackle: Red Rooster Hackle

Lots of Variations

The fly proved itself on the Snake River in southwest Idaho. Word spread to other parts of the western Rocky Mountains. Bill Beaty, one of Montana’s commercial tiers of the time, added the red goose quill tail. Cliff Wyatt of Santa Monica, California later added his variation to the pattern in the 1950’s with his Wyatt’s Trude that had an orange chenille body with a sweeping back guinea hackle intending to represent a “wet”stonefly and fished this pattern throughout the Sierra.

Pat Barnes designed his Sofa Pillow around the Trude pattern, being fished in West Yellowstone at the time, having a goose quill tail and floss body. Dan Bailey of Livingston Montana came up with his variations of the Trude, now being fished as a dry fly, not a wet fly. They had red, yellow and orange bodies with Adams-styled hackle. Later a lime colored dubbing was added and this fly, the Lime Trude, became one of the most popular variations being the choice for the Jackson Hole One-Fly Contest.

The Royal Trude, a variation off the Royal Coachman, was a favorite for Gary Lafontaine who caught over 300 trout each year with this pattern. Al Beatty also preferred this pattern as a searching pattern and would use Deer Hair rather than Golden Pheasant tippets for the tail. The Rio Grand King Trude was most likely a variation off the classic wet fly, Rio Grand King, that had a quill wing. Ray Bergman has a colored illustration of the pattern in his book, Trout (1938).

Really… another Hairwing pattern

By substituting the feather style wings with hair they often concluded that they had a Trude fly, never stopping to think that what they had was a hairwing variation. Such patterns as the Royal Coachman came to be known as the Royal Trude when it fact it could only be defined as a “Hairwing Royal Coachman”. Due to the down-wing shape, the trude is often fished as a dry fly with a downstream drift but retrieved as a wet fly or streamer. This gives the fly a unique ability as an attractor.

Rio Grand King Trude

Hook	TMC 100 #10-16
Thread	Veevus 10/0 Black
Body	Black Top Flight Dry Dubbing
Tail	Golden Pheasant Tippets
Wing	White Calf tail
Hackle	Grizzly Brown Hackle

Adams Trude

Hook	TMC 100 #10-16
Thread	Veevus 10/0 Black
Body	Adams Gray Superfine Dubbing
Tail	Moose Body Hair
Wing	White Calf tail
Hackle	Grizzly and Brown Hackle

Lime Trude

Hook	TMC 100 #10-16
Thread	Veevus 10/0 Black
Body	Caddis Green Superfine Dubbing
Tail	Golden Pheasant Tippets
Wing	White Calf tail
Hackle	Grizzly Coachman Brown Hackle

Yellow Trude

Hook	TMC 100 #10-16
Thread	Veevus 8/0 Pale Yellow
Body	Sulphur Yellow Superfine dubbing
Ribbing	Flat Gold Tinsel, narrow
Tail	Natural Bull Elk Hair
Wing	Gray Squirrel Tail
Hackle	Grizzly Brown Hackle

Red Trude

Hook	TMC 100 #10-16
Thread	Veevus 8/0 Red
Body	Red Superfine dubbing
Ribbing	Flat Silver Tinsel, narrow
Tail	Natural Bull Elk Hair
Wing	Fox Squirrel Tail
Hackle	Grizzly Brown Hackle

Wyatt’s Trude

Hook	TMC 5262 #4-8
Thread	Veevus Black 8/0
Body	Orange Chenille, Standard
Ribbing	Oval Gold Tinsel
Tail	Speckled Guinea Fowl
Wing	Fox Squirrel Tail
Hackle	Speckled Guinea Fowl