This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Purple Peril. Since I wrote about Purple Flies in this weeks blog, I felt it appropriate to select it as a Throw Back fly.
The Purple Peril was developed by George McLeod from the Seattle area before World War II.
Paraphrasing from Classic Steelhead Flies by John Shewey, George’s father fished the North Fork Stillaguamish River. His favorite steelhead fly was the Montreal, which used claret colored feathers. So he ordered them from M. Schwartz & Sons from New York City, but received purple hackle instead. Using those purple feathers, he tied up some bucktail patterns and guess what? They caught fish. Especially on dark days.
The Purple Peril is a classic steelhead fly that still catches fish today. In fact, I’ll bet you can find a bin of them at your local fly shop.
Try it on your next steelhead trip.
Go fish!
