How to Tie A White Wulff Fly Pattern

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Material List:

• Hareline Super Fine Dry Fly Dubbing - White #377g
• Hareline Calf Tails - White #377
• Veevus GSP Thread 50 Denier White #377
• Tiemco TMC 100 Dry Fly Hooks - #12 - 25 Pack
• Whiting Dry Fly Hackle 1/2 Cape - Golden Badger - Silver Grade

Video Transcript

Hello, I'm Carl at Trident Fly Fishing. Today we're going to tie the White Wulff. This fly was designed by the legendary Lee Wulff in the 1930s. It's a great fast water fly that floats high and easily supports a dropper. It's usually tied in sizes 10 through 16. The hook we're going to use today is a TMC 100 in size 12 - that's their standard dry fly hook. The thread we're going to use today is Veevus GSP 50D. I like this because I really like to pull on the materials in this fly, since they're so slippery. We'll get a little bit of Wapsi wax on there to get the thread started, because it's slippery too. Wrap back and form a small thread base for our wing, then come back up.

The first material for the wing is going to be some Hareline calf tail hair. We'll select some out from the middle, pulling it out perpendicular to the tail bone to help align the tips. Cut some off. There's a lot of fuzzy under-material in here - we're going to get rid of that. It doesn't stack very well because of all the kink in the hair, so we're just going to try tying it in the way it is. We want the wing to be the length of the hook shank, so we'll measure that out and tie it in on top with good tight turns. It's slippery material. Cut this off at an angle. I'm going to go forward and form a stop in front of that wing before I go any farther, so that it doesn't skate forward on the hook.

Now we'll jump our thread in front. We'll want a good dam to help stand that wing up. We'll flatten it out with our fingers to help us separate out two wings, and then with some crossing wraps we'll separate those. Now just a couple of posting turns. Pull the wing back, take a locking wrap around the body, and do the same thing for the other wing.

Now we'll run our thread back to the start of the bend of the hook, where we're going to tie in our tail material. That's going to be some more calf tail - same as before. Pull some of the material out away from the tail bone, get it perpendicular, which tends to line the tips up. Cut the material off and pull out all of the short fuzzy material. We want the tail to be about the hook shank in length, maybe just a little less. Tie that in on top of the hook. Get rid of the excess material.

The body of the fly is going to be some Super Fine dry fly dubbing from Hareline in white. You want nice clean hands for this, or your dubbing is not going to stay white. We'll form a dubbing noodle and wrap forward to the base of the wing with a tapered body.

The hackle for this fly is a Whiting dry fly cape - this happens to be a silver badger - and I've got a feather already picked out. We'll prepare that by removing some of the barbs from either side of the stem, leaving a little bit of stubble there for our thread to grab. We'll tie that in behind the wing and run our thread up to the eye. Minding the wings, we'll take a few turns behind them, then jump our hackle in front and wrap that up to the eye.

Once we reach the eye, capture the hackle and cut off the excess material. Pull the hackle back out of the way and form a small head. Take the whip finish tool and do a 4 or 5 turn whip finish. Seat the knot, cut the thread, and add a little head cement - this is Loon's water-based. Flick to clear out the eye, and our fly is finished.

Please feel free to add comments at the bottom of the page, and don't forget to hit that subscribe button to view all the new content here at Trident Fly Fishing. Thanks for watching. I hope to see you again next time.