Tying the Red Quill with Kelly Galloup

In this video, Kelly will walk you through the steps to tie one of the most famous Catskill Dry Flies of all time: The Red Quill. Art Flick is credited with this particular pattern, which he created in 1933 to imitate a Hendrickson Dun.
Recipe:
Hook: TMC 100 or favorite standard dry fly hook - www.slideinn.c...
Tail: Brown Hackle Fibers
Body: Stripped Stem from Brown Hackle or Polish Quills
Wing: Wood Duck Gold Mallard Flank - www.slideinn.c...
Hackle: Ginger or Dark Barred Ginger Hackle

[@michaelsanders5146]

Kelly as always you are a master and a wonderful storyteller of flytying! Bravo . Mike

[@flyrodhiker8326]

Very nice sir! Love those old patterns!

[@ipod1978]

Really enjoy the traditional patterns, something very genuine and real when tying and fishing with them. Great video guys

[@delawarepro3539]

KG you are a true Maverick/Maestro, thank you for your Great content/expertise. The Hendos are beginning here in the Catskills now 👌 experienced couple dozens hatching yesterday on the Neversink.

[@flyrodhiker8326]

Your videos have greatly helped my tying, I’ve really enjoyed them. I’d love to see you do a video on body materials and one on wing materials. Thanks for all the help!

[@zachconner7715]

Hello Kelly, Thanks for the tip on setting mallard wings! I have been experimenting with substituting mallard instead of grizzly tips for wings on the standard Adams. Up until i saw your video, I was really struggling with getting the wings right. I really enjoy your foray into the old school flies. Thanks again!

[@jeffnotti9932]

That is one of the coolest Flies EVER!.. I love to tie with badger too cause i like that dark and light effect.. it is a lot like a but.. i am gonna tie a bunch.. And Yep.. it helped me out a lot. i have learned a lot about tying watching your videos.. J

[@LumocolorARTnr1319]

I'm tying with you. This was a good one to learn. My feather was a little too short for the body the first time and the 2nd time the feather broke so I used your tip to wet it a little and it worked. My wings was somewhat decent after I replaced them one time. My hackle was 2x too long and I got carried away and did a couple of more turns than I should. Now I'm gonna do another one and try to do it better! :) Edit: 2nd one was so much better, but at the end when I did the whip finish I snapped my thread that is very thin. I had a good laugh at the bad ending ruining my best fly so far. Gonna make a third one now.

[@timperry6095]

I’m really loving these old school patterns. I think sometimes we forget just how effective some of these patterns still are. Maybe it’s part of the need for “more stuff” that seems to have developed in flies where folks think that the more crap you add in the better the fly is going to be. Catskill-style dries are more like the bare minimum to be effective that I have heard Kelly mention when designing flies - get rid of what’s not needed and the fly will likely fish better. Even if someone is turned off because they think Catskill patterns aren’t really true imitations like parachutes, no hackles, and other low floating patterns, I’d argue that they actually look like a mayfly trying to get off the water. The mayfly pushes its thorax up off the surface so its wings gain more clearance from the water and often looks like its abdomen dips right as it first tries to launch itself into the air. Even the hackle looks something like the commotion of a mayfly beating its wings.

[@harryleichtweis3378]

I have found for sunnies and bluegills, the classic style way outfishes parachute ties. Thanks for the video.

[@wyomingtrout5581]

I agree with you Kelly, sometimes trout key on movement and a traditional hackled fly is really effective. Several years ago during a windy late fall day I noticed the Baetis Duns skittering on the surface. Up to that point the fish had been extremely selective, resulting in numerous fly changes with no success. Then I put on a traditional hackled BWO and when slightly twitched, I started getting consistent hook-ups.

[@possumkingproductionsmike8089]

Love it. Beautiful tie. But I really want to see you tie one of the old Bluegill Flies you used to tie as a kid. Just for fun and to see where it all started.

[@Oholisfliesandfishing]

Great video as always. What do you think about coq de leon for rhe tail... stiffer than regular feather, so it would support fly better, but sill not too stiff as microfibetes....and CDleon has great markings too... Cheers 😃

[@kellygalloup6073]

Oholi's, I use them a lot, they are great for these flies. Thanks for watching. KG

[@Oholisfliesandfishing]

@@kellygalloup6073 i watch these videos daily... the day is not complete without one of yours videos. Cheers Vladimir 😃

[@jeffprice4611]

I never see you using head cement or any type glue. Do you ever use any? If so, what, when and where?

[@jamalmahdavian2200]

Quick question... If the Gap defines hook size... Isn't a Wide Gap 14 just a 1x fine, 1x short size 12? Or is a wide gap hook less than a size up? Addicted to the videos BTW.

[@tdematteo01]

Kelly Great fly and thanks for the video. I would suggest tying the wing in first so you get it set where you want it and don't have to worry so much as you tie in the other materials. Thanks

[@kellygalloup6073]

td, you know it had been so long since I tied one that I forgot thats how to set them. Almost re did it to do it right but ran out of time. You are correct though that is how I should have done it. Thanks, Kelly

[@parkervance3574]

There was 1 time I fished a brook trout stream in Wyoming that brook trout were keyed in on high floating flies. Paras and comparaduns did not work for em for whatever reason.

[@stephangray2436]

I live about twenty miles away from Dr. Whiting and I bet I will never be able to fish the untouched native cutthroats he has on his property next to the Grand Mesa

[@BrianOHanlon]

Yeah, there's still a bigger picture to all of it, and it's something that I find I keep going back to. It's the kind of description of what dry fly fishing is about, as far as someone such as Lee Wulff was concerned. Lee would have started with brook trout fishing, and indeed I think it was the pursuit of the brook trout that led him to venture up as far as Newfoundland and places, in order to discover from of the original brook trout habitat, that he believed had once stretched all down the eastern coast of America. Even though Lee Wulff eventually turned to fishing for migratory Atlantic salmon (and would use nothing more than a single handed trout rod for that purpose), I think that wrapped into Lee's salmon fly fishing were a lot of original brook trout fishing lessons.

[@BrianOHanlon]

The same could be said for an early Canadian angler such as George M. La Branche, who fished for trout and later did for salmon using the dry fly. I've read both of these authors from the earlier times, and they both come back to something very basic. It's about presenting to the fish an array of different shapes of fly. They were able to identify something about the psychology of the fish, or it's instinct that had to do with shape. And how fish would actually respond differently to different shapes put before them. Often one would have to show the fish a series of different shapes, in order for the fish to finally decide that it liked the initial shape the most. But it was about showing the fish alternatives. That is really the way in which these early dry fly men, took the basic lessons that they had learned from trout, and used them with salmon.

[@BrianOHanlon]

The reason that I mention it, is they decided to exaggerate the shapes also, in the case of angling for migratory species. Lee Wulff had a fly that he liked to present to the salmon, which was just a more exaggerated version of this classic style dry fly. It was a fly that could be made using Coq De Leon feathers, that are stiff, sharp and much longer than ordinary dry fly hackles. In order to exaggerate that effect, they would only wind the hackle on a quarter of the hook shank and leave the remainder of it bare. So, there was this tiny dry fly hook and this huge circular shaped hackle wound around the hook shank. This fly would do exactly like Kelly had described. It would sort of skuttle it's way over the surface of the water, like one of those parachute seeds that flies off in the wind and blows all over the place. The effect that the angler was trying to achieve, was like a dapping fly that would simply jump across the waves from crest to crest, and not spend a lot of it's time stationary in any one place.

[@BrianOHanlon]

The opposite to that kind of 'shape' of dry fly (in terms of the foot print that it has on the water surface from a fish's perspective), is a dry fly such as the Ant Acid pattern. That is a fly, that sort of glues itself tightly down on to the surface film - and does completely the opposite to what the Red Quill dry fly - or a more exaggerated version of the Red Quill classic Catskill dry fly pattern would do.

[@BrianOHanlon]

There's one kind of dry fly that was in evidence a lot in both the flies of George M. La Branche and Lee Wulff's fly boxes, and one which I've seen for many years in the fly boxes of the typical Irish lake angler. That is the sort of dry fly, that is made using a palmered hackle. It's what they'd term on the Irish lakes, a mouth full. I.e. It is a dry fly that is designed to be seen, because it presents to the fish underneath as quite a 'square' mass of hackle based float-ation material. And that is the point. The way that the palmered dry fly sits on the water, is such that there is a lot going on. It's almost as if several flies have got themselves stuck together in a bunch, and they've landed on the water. Indeed, in American dry fly fishing that is often achieved in small midge imitation patterns. Where the goal is, instead of imitation of the single nymph, it's considered useful to imitate a group of them, which the trout doesn't mind consuming as a bunch either.

[@BrianOHanlon]

I can't remember if I've seen this fly in Kelly's tutorials though, but something such as the Royal Wulff might be like that. Where a good half length of the hook shank is devoted to hackle feather that is wound around the hook shank in classic style. The ideal way to achieve that, and I don't know if many American tiers do it, is to actually wind two or three cock hackles at the same time. And the hackles don't all have to be the same colour either. Now that I think of it, the closest that Kelly has demonstrated to that, is actually the North Branch Caddis, where it was described as one quarter 'legs' and three quarters 'abdomen'. That is a little bit akin to the Wulff style of dry fly.

[@creedm3040]

Profile matters most. Sometimes it just takes something traditional.

[@warrenhagenbuck8340]

When are going to write a fly flying boo?

[@harryhthenorwegian476]

Mr. Galloup... why don't you ever use CDC when tying a fly? Is the CDC only a European thing? I'm just wondering...

[@italiantroutaholic8926]

HS?? ....you mean last week!!!!