HISTORY OF ROYAL WULFF DRY FLY
Lee Wulff
The royal Wulff is perhaps the single most famous dry fly pattern in the fly fishing world.
Lee Wulff is largely credited with designing the Royal Wulff fly fishing pattern in 1929-30 in the Beaverkill river area of upstate New York. But it should be noted that Q L Quackenbush, also from the Beaverkill river area independently had a hand in it’s creation as well.
Both men recognized that the dry fly version of the popular fanwing royal coachman was too light and fragile for freestone streams with fast riffles and tumbling runs and both men made changes to the pattern.
Lee Wulff is credited with specifically changing the tail to moose body, and wing to calf tail, making the fly especially buoyant and durable.
A few years later Lee Wulff collaborated with Dan Bailey who pioneered the famous fly shop in Livingston, Montana. Dan Bailey encouraged Wulff to develop a series of flies based on the features of the now well tested royal Wulff.
The series consisted of three dry flies originally called the grey, coffin, and bucktail coachmans. Bailey also encouraged Wulff to change the name of the flies and the royal, white, and grey Wulff dry flies were born.
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