This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is a Northern Idaho Trude.
This is another fly from a box of old flies I borrowed from my friend Jim Fisher. He learned to fly fish in Northern Idaho. This fly is probably from the 1950’s or 60’s.
The Trude fly was developed by Carter Harrison in either 1901, 1903 or 1906 (I’ve seen all three dates listed). Harrison, of Chicago, was a guest fishing on the A.S. Trude ranch in Big Springs, ID. My research shows the fly was originally tied as a joke using red carpet fibers for the body and red spaniel dog hair for the wing. Other flies were tied after the joke because the fly actually looked like it might actually catch fish, a body of red yarn and a rib of silver with squirrel hair showing the dark band, finished with a red rooster hackle.
There are now numerous variations of the Trude-style fly, including the popular Royal Trude. Many are tied with a wing of calf tail and golden pheasant tippet for the tail.
The original Trude was one of the first fly patterns where hair was used for the wing. Most other flies of the time used feathers for a wing.
Here is a sampling of a few other posts I wrote about from the information I received from Jim:
In addition, other TBT posts includes several of his Atlantic salmon flies.
Jim Fisher was recognized as the 2011 Stan Walters Memorial Tyer of the Year from the Oregon Council of Fly Fisher’s International. I spent a few hours with him for a tutorial on selecting materials and techniques used to tie wet fly wings.
Enjoy…go fish, stay safe!
