Quill Gordon Crippled Real Wing
by Sandfly
Back in the late 60’s and early 70’s while fishing in the Pocono’s I fished the early season hatches there every year. The first big hatch was the Quill Gordon hatch. While the wet fly and nymph were productive the dry fly was not so productive for me. Even though I used the standard pattern I could not get consistent takes.
For years this went on and I became frustrated with the hatch. After moving to Ansonia in 2006 I found there is a heavy hatch of Quill Gordon's here at times on Pine Creek.
Again I was frustrated by the lack of surface takes on my flies I used. I experimented with different dries for the Quill Gordon with the same results. I think it was because the flies pop so fast the trout didn’t want them so much.
While sitting on the bank one day watching the hatch I saw a brown feeding on the surface. As I watched I noticed he was taking flies that were not riding high but the ones riding low in the surface. I went home and tied a few down wing flies and went back the next day.
They worked I started getting more fish on the down wing. I thought I could come up with a better fly yet and sat down and tied the Quill Gordon Crippled using raffia for the wing instead of the old standby of wood duck. Along with this I changed the body from a quill body to a dubbed dirty olive/yellow dubbing with a peacock quill rib. This did it and my catch rates went up.
Now when the Quill Gordon’s are hatching I make sure I have these in my box along with the old patterns too.
by Sandfly
For years this went on and I became frustrated with the hatch. After moving to Ansonia in 2006 I found there is a heavy hatch of Quill Gordon's here at times on Pine Creek.
Again I was frustrated by the lack of surface takes on my flies I used. I experimented with different dries for the Quill Gordon with the same results. I think it was because the flies pop so fast the trout didn’t want them so much.
While sitting on the bank one day watching the hatch I saw a brown feeding on the surface. As I watched I noticed he was taking flies that were not riding high but the ones riding low in the surface. I went home and tied a few down wing flies and went back the next day.
They worked I started getting more fish on the down wing. I thought I could come up with a better fly yet and sat down and tied the Quill Gordon Crippled using raffia for the wing instead of the old standby of wood duck. Along with this I changed the body from a quill body to a dubbed dirty olive/yellow dubbing with a peacock quill rib. This did it and my catch rates went up.
Now when the Quill Gordon’s are hatching I make sure I have these in my box along with the old patterns too.
