Flyfishing is filled with mystery. The Quill Gordon, originated by Theodore Gordon, is one such mystery. Spend time looking at the pattern recipes from a wide variety of tiers and you will see what I mean.
The first reasonably tied dry fly to come off of my bench, as a teenager, and prove effective to this day, was the Quill Gordon. I’m not sure where I found the original pattern recipe, but my father had purchased a book of patterns for me, without color plates, that began me on my journey; the book probably smelled smoky. I believe an article in an outdoor magazine focused my attention on the fly, and I tied a few with different colored, loose hackle I had. Herter’s, the midwest catalogue company that was one of the only sources of fly tying material for me at the time, appropriated my allowance and lawn mowing money as quickly as it was earned, and when the recipe called for “dun” hackle, I went digging through the catalogue. There was, as I recall, a package deal of six hackle necks, and some color options. It seemed an expensive investment but I found that one of the colors offered was “dun”. I mailed in my order sheet with the selected items and a check written by my mom.
Herters hackle necks of the time were imported from India, and color/quality control was dismal by today’s standards, but the package did not disappoint, and the black, white/cream, brown, badger and grizzly necks were precisely as expected; the remaining neck, a tan or buff color, had to be the dun. The Catskill pattern performed well. Soon it was my dry fly of choice, and as my explorations of streams holding trout advanced, I could count on the fly to take fish. I was naive of most mayfly hatches as a young man, but by the time I moved to the West, the Quill Gordon was well enough established in my box, in multiple sizes, that it remained a “go to” pattern even if no western stream contained the actual insect the Quill Gordon was originally designed to imitate.
The Quill Gordon is the only fly to bear the name of Theodore Gordon, but it is hardly his only contribution to patterns or the sport. A prolific tier, Gordon defined the Catskill pattern, and took most of his ideas from British flies such as the Coachman. The Quill Gordon that is his namesake is still tied and used across America. The first mention of the fly in literature is in a letter to the Fishing Gazette editor, R. B. Marston, who describes the pattern in a margin note of the 1903 letter. The fly is described as having a quill body, “summer duck”, likely wood duck flank feathers for wings, and a “silver grey” hackle. The mystery begins with the color of the original pattern.
In the mid- to late-1800’s, Gordon would have explored local barnyards for the rooster feathers ideal for tying his Catskill patterns. Hen hackles are soft, often used in the wet fly patterns of the day (up to and including the present), but they were inferior to the cock feathers with their stiffer barbs. There is evidence that Halford’s initial dry flies were simply wet fly patterns, dried by the false cast, and floated briefly in presentation to feeding trout. British chalk streams being much flatter and slower than American streams, these patterns were less effective to Gordons taste. It was the patterns used by Halford that made their way to Gordon through correspondence between the two giants of early dry fly fishing. Gordons most important contribution was the use of the more sparsely tied, rooster hackle flies that improved buoyancy; critical to fishing the American rivers that ran faster, with greater chop. The Catskill tradition was born.
More on the mystery: many of the tiers today, and the historical record of the fly, suggest a blue dun hackle; that hackle and color being very much in favor. The blue color would have effectively matched the wing color of the sub-imbago (dun) Epeorus pleuralis; quite a distinguishing color characteristic and the mayfly commonly called today the Quill Gordon.
The word “dun” plays a significant role in trying to understand the color of the original pattern. As the descriptor of a color, dun refers to a certain breed of horses, duns, that have a decidedly tan or buff color; some grey tones highlighting the shade of light brown. It’s difficult to determine the origins of the use of the word “dun” to describe the subimago stage of the mayfly, but most entomological works add the term and attributes it to anglers. When the term was attributed remains uncertain, but like many of the common names of aquatic insects, it was anglers, not scientists that labeled the subimago stage, unique to mayflies (no other insect has two stages as an adult). In fact, the term dun as applied to the subimago mayfly stage is not found in the entomology literature until well after Halfords book in 1889. The scientific community began in the mid-1850’s to examine and write about insect taxonomy and since the subimago is unique to mayflies, it is easy to discover the time, in literature, when the science recognized the “anglers term” dun first appears; it’s not until 1942. This suggests that early dry fly fisherman coined the term “dun” for the mayflies subimago stage, not necessarily the color, since the use of the term in Halfords book includes references to many mayflies; and not to any specific color. I believe Halford, and perhaps his companions in pursuit of trout, appropriated the term to describe the subimago, or perhaps the whole species, since he includes references to dun nymphes. Other authors of the time, including Englefield and Skues also use the term dun to describe all mayflies, in all stages and color adjectives are applied to various sub-species. Also, the body and legs of the mayfly “Quill Gordon” are of a tan shade, sharply segmented with a darker brown rib. The wings of E.Pleuralis are blue grey, as are many mayfly duns or sub-imago's.
A bit more of the mystery is that the Andalusian Blue chicken, common to Spain and available in Britain by the 1840’s: undoubtedly finding its way onto fly tiers benches, was also sent to America, but Gordon complains in another letter to Marston in 1903 that the Andalusian bird was not available in America and the few he had obtained from Britain were more black than blue and “quite useless” to the fly tier. By 1913, just two years before his death, Gordon noted that he had obtained the Blue Andalusian chickens, and was inquiring about cross breeding in order to achieve the desired blue dun hackle. Of course, Harry Darbee, a protege of Gordon, gains considerable notoriety in achieving effective cross breeding of birds for the purpose of hackle later in the century, but Gordon’s efforts did seem to create the blue color; a sample was sent to Marston, but long after the original Quill Gordon was initially tied.
As a footnote, the Blue Andalusian birds never do become common in the development of genetic hackles for tying, and blue dun hackles today are mostly white roosters, dyed the familiar light, medium and dark blue “dun”. Natural dun saddles and necks are available, most notably from Whiting Farms; they run to a slight grey, or dirty white with a grey shade along the stem, such as a “badger” hackle; not the tan that I tie with, although I’m certain some genetic hackles labelled “natural dun” would have a tan coloration. I have been able to locate a “Darbee Tan Dun” cape that is very close, and I understand that there exist some natural dun colors, highly prized, and not available unless you work directly with the grower. There’s also “ginger” hackle that can have less yellow and more grey tone, bringing it closer to the color I associate with dun.
Was the original pattern tied with a grey hackle? Was the term “dun” first applied to the subimago stage of the mayfly because of its tan or buff coloration; the likely origins of the use of the word as a definition of a mayfly? It seems certain that the wing color of most mayflies inspired the popularity of the blue dun hackle. Was Gordon able to find grey hackle, the result of black roosters and white hens cross breeding, to construct his original? Was Gordon attempting to match the blue wing of the subimago?
While fascinating issues, the fact now is that the pattern is tied with both tan or natural and blue dun hackles, and some even deviate from the stripped peacock herl for the body. It is also likely that the original tail material was fibers of wood duck flank; the same as the wing material. My bench has always contained natural/tan dun colored hackle, and while I favor blue dun for many patterns, my Quill Gordon is tied with natural/tan dun.
Whether you tie the Quill Gordon with blue or tan dun hackle, few flies will consistently work as well to imitate a long list of mayflies. Common names of mayflies include quill gordon, and even Western quill gordon, but the species are different. The advantage to the use of the fly here in the West, is that the likely insect the fish trigger on have two characteristics that make both the Quill Gordon and the Adams great search patterns. The first is size; both the genus Epeorus of the East and the multiple mayflies closely related in the West can run as large as size 12. The second, applying mostly to Western hatches, is that they hatch sporadically over a longer period of time, not within a week or two such as the quill gordon of the east. This makes them familiar to the trout from July through September, and I believe both the Quill Gordon and Adams benefit as fish takers because of this hatching behavior. As I have said, the untangling of the various scientific classifications and differences in mayfly species is overwhelming, and often changing, the use of common flies to take fish in Western rivers corresponds to the numerous mayfly types.
My variation on the Quill Gordon follows a progression over many years. Always a fan of the Catskill dry fly, my experimentation with the QG started with different quill bodies, different wing materials and finally arrived at a parachute-winged and hackled version. As I discuss in greater detail in describing the Adams, the final step was the Klinkhammer approach to tying this pattern.
I fish the Quill Gordon when I suspect, or know, that a recent hatch has attracted attention of the trout. My theory is that trout will continue to respond to hatch triggers for hours, even days after the height of the hatch, and any bug looking like a mayfly in shape and approximate size will bring fish to the surface. This is much to the advantage of the dry fly angler. Sometimes the Quill Gordon will work when a specific imitation of a recent hatch will not bring fish up; I’ve never been certain about why that is. It’s also wise to fish patterns one size larger than a recent hatch. For instance, if a Pale Evening Dun hatch was available the previous day and running a size 14, the Quill Gordon in #12 will work well the next morning. Of course the Quill Gordon is an excellent match to the PED! You needn’t always wait for the hatch later in the afternoon. The fly will also perform well between Green Drake hatches.
(Below: Authors current version of the Quill Gordon. Para tied and Klinkhammer emerged.
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