The Catskill dry fly is the American contribution to dry fly fishing for trout. The History of the Catskill dry fly has as much to do with he history of Theodore Gordon and his classic fly; the Quill Gordon. Before Gordon, the dry fly approach, initiated on English chalk streams, came to America in the 1800’s and the correspondence between Frederic Halford in England (The Father of Modern Dry-Fly Fishing) and Theodore Gordon (The Father of American Fly Fishing) shine a bright light on the dry fly evolution in American, specifically to the streams and rivers of the Catskill Mountains, west of the Hudson River and north of New York city. Streams discovered as a bountiful watershed of native Brook trout, anglers from the mid 1700’s to the mid 1800’s, devastated the fishery, often taking hundreds of brook trout a day. Fortunately, the advent of raising european Brown trout in hatcheries brought the waterways of the Catskills back from ruin, even though the population of trout became brown and rainbow.
The use of dry flies for brown trout in England was well established when Gordon tried to use the method on the Beaverkill and Willowemoc rivers of New York, ultimately writing letters to Halford discussing patterns Gordon was using. Two influences created the creation of Catskill dry flies: the fact that the insects of the American rivers differed from English chalk streams; and, perhaps more significantly, the choppy, higher gradient streams Gordon was fishing. If you examine the drawings preserving the history of the English dry fly, you’ll note that the hackle on those flies were pulled back, more like a wet fly as we think of them. Gordon pioneered the use of stiffer hackles that would float the flies effectively in the mountain streams of the Catskills. Research reveals that Halford and others in England used rooster hackles, but the design was clearly to pull back the hackles, not have them wound in such a way to have them slightly shorter, and straight up from the shank of the hook. Today, it is fair to say that most great dry flies fished here, and around the world, evolved directly from this innovation. Gordon and his fishing companions (Steenrod, Darbee, Dette, Norris) often borrowing from English fly patterns, altered the hackle so as to create a fly that would stay afloat longer. That and the American aquatic insect limitations such as the Hendrickson, Olive Upright, Cahill and even the Adams, though originating on Michigan waters.
Other significant challenges to high floating dry flies were to be tackled over the decades, but it is fair to say that most dry fly patterns in use today can trace their origins to the Catskill patterns. Even the recent efforts to tie “para-” flies are more than not a Catskill pattern with an upright post wing and stiff hackle wrapped around the post. My own effort to tie dry flies in para-style on Klinkhammer emerger hooks is not so much an innovation as a natural evolution of the Catskill dry. New fly tiers should start by tying the basic Catskill dry, with its simple but perfect foundation: tail, body, wings and hackle. In fact, wings are perhaps the beginners most difficult of maneuvers in tying flies: I would suggest the new ties forgo the wings altogether and concentrate on the proportions and relationship to hook size with dry flies having only tail, body and hackle! They will catch fish just as effectively without the wing.