HENRYVILLE SPECIAL - Old Flies - November 02, 2009

[Mark Vendon]

Hi Larry,

I stumbled upon that picture just about five years ago now and made a print-out so I would always have it since I never saw an original tie of it either. If you notice, he mis-spelled it by a letter in the title so Google doesn't find it easy either.

In Earnest Schweibert's book Trout, he has it included in his Catalog of Fly Patterns and it's listed as the Henryville. I don't want to copy it all word for word, but here's a snippet. "It was originally called the No-name on the Brodheads. The Brobst pattern used scarlet silk floss for it's body, which turned a deep ruddy brown on its first baptism. Silk should still be used in place of synthetic flosses, since they remain scarlet when wet, making the Henryville merely a lure instead of a fine sedge imitation." Right after the original pattern and dressing list, he has the Henryville Olive, which he credits himself as coming up with. Whether that's true or not, I have no idea. He writes this after the dressing list. "This olive-bodied Henryville is a personal variation on the original Brobst dressing, in response to the olivaceous caddis hatches on many rivers."

Like I stated in my post before, I'm also a big fan of this pattern. I use Pearsall's Gossamer silk in Cardinal for the body since I think it looks a lot closer to that picture's body color than scarlet does. The first trout that I caught on a dry fly was on this pattern on West Canada Creek when I was just learning to cast. It was the olive bodied version though. I tie a variation of it too and replace the grizzly hackle with cdc for slower type water.

Regards,
Mark