To Honor Lee Wulff

All about flies Fly Tying
1

I got blasted for my expressed belief that Lee Wulff’s style and size of flies would not be as productive today as they were 60-70 years ago.

Anyway, he is still one of my hero’s.

So, I am trying to tie some smaller version of the Wulffs for today’s PMD hatches - not literally “today”, but in this time period v. 70 yrs. or whatever ago.

I have tied one with brown bucktail and one with brown calf hair. Think one of these will work? They are size 14 std. dry fly.
Thanks,

Byron

With Calf Tail:

With Bucktail:

2

Really like them Byron… and yes they will catch fish… very nicely tied.

3

Wulff patterns will always occupy spaces in my fly box. I’ve been tying them ever since I started in the late 60’s.

4

One of the best days I ever had fishing for specks was with this pattern…

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5

Tig, would I be correct in assuming that Specks in Ontario refers to Brookies and not Crappie?

Thx,
Ed

6

Great looking fly Byron. Did you use a vise? Remember , Lee Wulff could do that with out one…incredible.

7

No, not done sans vise, but without talent - maybe even more incredible!

8

No , you definitely have talent , that fly shows it. I think that Lee Wulff would approve.

9

Too kind. Thank you. Really wish I could have fished with him

10

Byron, these flies are wonderful. Great job.

11

Send them to me and I will test them out here in NY;)

12

Nothing wrong with those flies! We still fish a pattern down here in TN and NC called a “thunderhead” and it is basically a Wulff style adams. Works great when fishing the pocket water of small, fast running Mountain streams!

aa

13

beautifully tied, i like the bucktail

14

Nice ties! Those flies look fantastic.

To echo AA’s post, there’s a fly that has roots in the Smokey Mountains of western NC and estern TN called the “Thunderhead” that was developed by the late Fred Hall of Bryson City, NC. I have not confirmed this, but I have read that Mr. Hall developed his Thunderhead fly before the Wulff version came on the scene. The Thunderhead is basically a Adams tied in “Wulff style”. I’ve done a bit of looking into the dates of the flies and cannot confirm which fly was first tied…not that it is that important, because both tyers were fantastic fly tyers and fishermen.