The Riffle fly pattern has series evolved as a specialized, calf tail fly pattern from the Wulff fly pattern series. The original Riffle flies are nothing more than versions of Wulff form and style flies, tied in a combination of basic mayfly colors. In his book, The Book of Fly Patterns (1987), Eric Leiser presents the Brown Riffle and The Grizzly Riffle among his compilation of 1000 fly patterns. In his book, Dick Surette's Trout and Salmon Fly Index (1974), Dick Surette introduces the Riffle fly pattern based on the Gray Riffle and notes additional ginger, brown, black and cream versions of the series. Intended for big brown trout during the evening rise. The Riffle fly pattern was created by Dick Surette for fast or broken water of the Saco River. The signature design of the highly visible, high floating Riffle fly pattern is the implimentaion of calf tail for both the upright, oversized wings and the bushy tail, thus, grouped with hair wing fly patterns. Origin and History of the Riffle Fly Pattern: The Comparadun, Haystack, No Hackle and similar fly patterns are exceptions to the hair wing fly pattern group as they are designed for surface film presentationin in calm water and without the use of hackle. Hackle is tied to be bushy or palmered, providing a high-float presentation. Body color is typically the basis for the fly name. The tail is typically tied using hair fibers and typically omitted for the caddisfly. A caddisfly wing is tied downwing or tentwing and a stonefly wing is tied downwing or flatwing using hair fibers or an appropriate synthetic, hair-like substitute. A mayfly wing is tied upright and divided using hair fibers or an appropriate synthetic, hair-like substitute. The group of hair wing fly patterns are designed in general for roughwater and to suggest a mayfly or other upright wing insects as well as caddisfly or stonefly or other down wing insects. These names prevailed, regardless of size and use and many additional fly patterns have since then been labeled a “Wulff” of some sort In 1939, Dan Bailey successfully renamed and marketed these fly patterns as the Gray Wulff, White Wulff and Royal Wulff when tied in the smaller sizes as an adaptation for the pursuit of trout. Wulff called his flies the Gray Hair-Wing, White Hair-Wing and Royal Hair-Wing as he pursued Atlantic salmon. Wulff created the Gray Hair Wing, White Hair Wing and Royal Coachman Hair Wing originally as dry flies for Adirondack trout in 1929 and on large hooks for Atlantic salmon in Nova Scotia soon after. Wulff preferred to use moose mane hair for the tails, providing a more realistic, long, sparse tail for his fly patterns. He first created the Gray Wulff using elk hair, then later the White Wulff and Royal Wulff using calf tail for the upright and divided wings. In the late 1930s, Lee Wulff saw the value in tying hair wing fly patterns for Atlantic salmon as well as trout. In bright colors calf tail hair is highly visible as well as highly floatant. Want more inspiration? Just search for "poly fly tying" on YouTube.Many hair wing fly patterns utilize calf tail or kip tail hair fibers for the wings. How to Tie the Poly Caddis Dry Fly (Colorado FisherDudes YouTube video).Poly Wing Rusty Spinner (tightlinevideo YouTube video).Tying a Simple & Effective Poly winged Midge Dry Fly (Makflies YouTube video).Parachute Poly Wing Fly (InTheRiffle YouTube video).Poly Wing Adams (Jim Misiura YouTube video).Simple Foam Caddis (Hopper Fishing blog post).Until then, here are some fly tying recipes and videos showing different uses for poly yarn. We plan to make and share our own examples of flies you can tie with poly yarn. Here at, we sell several different colors of poly yarn, which you can find here. It's great for use on dry flies, but it's not so buoyant by itself that it can't be used on wet flies or streamers. This material stays buoyant when wet (unlike our wool yarns), which is why it is sometimes referred to as floating yarn. A common misconception is that "poly" refers to polyester, but it in fact refers to polypropylene. Poly yarn has long been used in fly tying.
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