Wulff Flies

Royal Wulff
Royal Wulff
Tying Instructions 		Materials: (to Order Material, click the link)

Notes: Lee Wulff was an innovator. He designed the first fishing vest, popularized left-handed reels to keep the rod in the stronger right hand, created the first palming reel, and designed triangle taper lines. He designed the White and Gray Wulff patterns in 1929 which led to a number of other take-offs. Disgusted with English-derived dry flies that were too fragile for our western waters, Lee bulked the dry fly with the use of hair rather than feathers for the tails and wings. His original wulffs called for bucktail but were tied later with a calf tail wing and deer hair tail. Dan Bailey, a close friend and fishing companion, marketed Lee's innovations and insisted upon naming them "Wulff" flies. The split wing is actually the preference of Dan Bailey to make the fly more marketable to the public. Lee actually preferred to tie his flies with a single wing. The Royal Wulff was actually designed by Q.L. Quackenbush. It was a Royal Coachman Hair Wing Dry, first called a Quack Coachman. Quackenbush asked Rueben Cross of Neversink, N.Y. to dress the fly with a heavier wing. Rueben used Impala Tails to create a more stiff and kinky wing. Since it looked very similar to the Wulff flies designed by Lee Wulff, it eventually became known as the "Royal Wulff", a royal addtion to his series of Wulff flies.
The Gray Wulff was the first "Wulff" pattern designed by Lee Wulff. He utilized this fly for large Isonychia hatches in the Catskills. He found that the bulkier fly looked more like the naturals and proceeded to catch over 51 trout on one of his first outings with this fly.
The Grizzly Wulff is one of Dan Bailey's variations to imitate large mayflies in the Yellowstone area. He utilized yellow floss for the body as well as brown bucktail or deer hair for the upright and divided wing.
Gary LaFontaine created the Were Wulff variation. The Woodchuck tail material are not rigid and straight like deer hair or moose mane. The Woodchuck has lighter colors at the tips of the hairs which gives a action-like appearance on the water. Fran Betters also preferred to use Woodchuck for tailing materials with his Ausable Wulff.
Another nice variation is the ParaWulff designed by Jack Dennis. With this pattern the wingpost begins as a single post where the parachute hackle is built and the wingpost is divided above the hackle for the hallmark wulff divided wing. The divided wing provides a great sight indicator to the pattern but it also allows the fly to land softly on the water surface since the divided wing provides some additional air resistance. A parachute hackle allows the pattern to lie lower within the water film and provides a better sillouette to the trout from below. Jack prefers to use Calf Tail that is straight but this is often hard to find and Calf Body Hair is often used. White thread is often preferred since it blends into the white calf tail wingpost but many patterns select the color of the thread to match the thorax dubbing. Jack originally designed this pattern for a number of mayflies, particularly Blue Wing Olives and Pale Morning Duns, but over the past few years a purple colored body has been very popular through the success of the Purple Haze. All of the Wulff patterns, including the ParaWulffs, work well in the Sierra from June through September.

Variations:



Gray Wulff
Gray Wulff

Materials: (to Order Material, click the link)


Grizzly Wulff
Grizzly Wulff

Materials: (to Order Material, click the link)


Were Wulff
Were Wulff

Materials: (to Order Material, click the link)


ParaWulff
Para Wulff

Materials: (to Order Material, click the link)
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