Fountains of Youth – Classic trout flies that have withstood the test of time … flies that remain “forever young”
by Rusty Dunn
It’s mid-Spring on a bluebird April day. The water has warmed following winter’s chill, and trout are looking up. Fish are slashing in the riffles and porpoising in the pools. You reach confidently for a size #18 dark bodied caddis dry fly. Good choice. Fish are on it in a flash. Over the next few hours, you bring dozens to hand. What a glorious day. The thrill of victory.
Just one month earlier on the same stream in March, you found blue-winged olives hatching in abundance and again fish rising everywhere. You reached confidently for a size #18 BWO dun. No takers. You tried a smaller size but only got cautious looks from wary trout. You switched to a parachute BWO. No interest. You tried a BWO emerger. Rejection. You emptied the fly box trying to find a pattern that fish would take but never found one. Standing among rising trout, you were fishless. As daylight faded to evening, your confidence faded to zero. The agony of defeat.
When food is scarce, trout often feed recklessly, but when it’s plentiful, they can be oh-so-picky. What to do? Well, you could fish only in April and May, the months when fishing is easy. Or you could locate a copy of Doug Swisher and Carl Richards’ 1971 book Selective Trout and tie some No-Hackle Duns. They might be just the ticket for those fussy trout.
No-hackle dry flies originated in England over 200 years ago with the Hare’s Ear dry fly of Samuel Taylor, which was described in Angling in All Its Branches (1800) as a variation of the even-more-ancient Hare’s Ear wet fly. Taylor’s fly is often credited as being the very first to be tied without hackle yet intended to be fished as a dry fly. F.M. Halford, the most influential advocate of dry-fly fishing in history, added a gold rib to Taylor’s pattern in 1886 and proclaimed that, if he had to choose but one dry fly, it would be the Gold-Ribbed Hare’s Ear dry fly. Despite Halford’s endorsement, no-hackle dry flies are scarce in the angling literature until publication of Selective Trout.
Swisher and Richards focused modern angling attention on the importance of imitating insects during those few seconds or minutes when winged adults crawl from their nymphal skins, pierce the surface film, expand their wings, and fly away. Selective Trout was very influential. It revived interest in emergers, championed low-floating fly patterns, contained the most detailed discussion of mayfly spinners to date, and provided hatch charts with identification keys for mayflies all over North America. It was the first non-scientific book with large clear color photos of trout-stream insects.
By careful observation and clever underwater photography, Swisher and Richards documented a trout’s-eye view of mayflies during emergence. As newly hatched duns float downstream and approach a trout’s window of vision, the first features clearly visible from below are a slim body sitting flush in the surface film and a prominent upright wing. Viewed underwater, high floating, traditionally hackled flies, which Swisher and Richards derided as looking like “shaving brushes”, are unlike the real McCoy. Hackle hides the body and wing, but no-hackle designs emphasize them and capture the essence of an emerger’s underwater profile. Widely split tail fibers provide the necessary stability and, together with upright wings, cause no-hackles to land straight, true, and low in the surface film. Swisher and Richards described the Sidewinder No-hackle Dun as their best pattern to imitate emerged duns at the surface. Other patterns in Selective Trout imitate emergers at earlier stages of a hatch.
The next time some overly opinionated trout threaten you with the agony of defeat, cast off your (s)hackles and reach for a No-hackle Dun. It’s hard to find a dry fly more elegant, more beautiful, or more effective.
Copyright 2025, Rusty Dunn
Sidewinder No-Hackle Dun
This Sidewinder Nohackle Dun is tied in the colors of a blue-winged olive. Vary the size and color to match other mayfly species.
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Hook:
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Light wire dry fly, #16-20
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Thread:
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Olive-dun or olive-brown, 8/0
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Tail:
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Medium dun hackle fibers or microfibetts, widely split
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Abdomen:
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Tying thread
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Thorax:
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Brown-olive beaver, muskrat, silk, or other dry fly dubbin
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Wing:
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Matched slips of duck quill, upright and divided, mounted low aside the thorax and slanting rearward slightly
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Sidewinder No-Hackle Dun
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Posted: March 9, 2025 by Drew Kasel
by Rusty Dunn
It’s mid-Spring on a bluebird April day. The water has warmed following winter’s chill, and trout are looking up. Fish are slashing in the riffles and porpoising in the pools. You reach confidently for a size #18 dark bodied caddis dry fly. Good choice. Fish are on it in a flash. Over the next few hours, you bring dozens to hand. What a glorious day. The thrill of victory.
Just one month earlier on the same stream in March, you found blue-winged olives hatching in abundance and again fish rising everywhere. You reached confidently for a size #18 BWO dun. No takers. You tried a smaller size but only got cautious looks from wary trout. You switched to a parachute BWO. No interest. You tried a BWO emerger. Rejection. You emptied the fly box trying to find a pattern that fish would take but never found one. Standing among rising trout, you were fishless. As daylight faded to evening, your confidence faded to zero. The agony of defeat.
When food is scarce, trout often feed recklessly, but when it’s plentiful, they can be oh-so-picky. What to do? Well, you could fish only in April and May, the months when fishing is easy. Or you could locate a copy of Doug Swisher and Carl Richards’ 1971 book Selective Trout and tie some No-Hackle Duns. They might be just the ticket for those fussy trout.
No-hackle dry flies originated in England over 200 years ago with the Hare’s Ear dry fly of Samuel Taylor, which was described in Angling in All Its Branches (1800) as a variation of the even-more-ancient Hare’s Ear wet fly. Taylor’s fly is often credited as being the very first to be tied without hackle yet intended to be fished as a dry fly. F.M. Halford, the most influential advocate of dry-fly fishing in history, added a gold rib to Taylor’s pattern in 1886 and proclaimed that, if he had to choose but one dry fly, it would be the Gold-Ribbed Hare’s Ear dry fly. Despite Halford’s endorsement, no-hackle dry flies are scarce in the angling literature until publication of Selective Trout.
Swisher and Richards focused modern angling attention on the importance of imitating insects during those few seconds or minutes when winged adults crawl from their nymphal skins, pierce the surface film, expand their wings, and fly away. Selective Trout was very influential. It revived interest in emergers, championed low-floating fly patterns, contained the most detailed discussion of mayfly spinners to date, and provided hatch charts with identification keys for mayflies all over North America. It was the first non-scientific book with large clear color photos of trout-stream insects.
By careful observation and clever underwater photography, Swisher and Richards documented a trout’s-eye view of mayflies during emergence. As newly hatched duns float downstream and approach a trout’s window of vision, the first features clearly visible from below are a slim body sitting flush in the surface film and a prominent upright wing. Viewed underwater, high floating, traditionally hackled flies, which Swisher and Richards derided as looking like “shaving brushes”, are unlike the real McCoy. Hackle hides the body and wing, but no-hackle designs emphasize them and capture the essence of an emerger’s underwater profile. Widely split tail fibers provide the necessary stability and, together with upright wings, cause no-hackles to land straight, true, and low in the surface film. Swisher and Richards described the Sidewinder No-hackle Dun as their best pattern to imitate emerged duns at the surface. Other patterns in Selective Trout imitate emergers at earlier stages of a hatch.
The next time some overly opinionated trout threaten you with the agony of defeat, cast off your (s)hackles and reach for a No-hackle Dun. It’s hard to find a dry fly more elegant, more beautiful, or more effective.
Copyright 2025, Rusty Dunn
Sidewinder No-Hackle Dun
This Sidewinder Nohackle Dun is tied in the colors of a blue-winged olive. Vary the size and color to match other mayfly species.
Hook:
Light wire dry fly, #16-20
Thread:
Olive-dun or olive-brown, 8/0
Tail:
Medium dun hackle fibers or microfibetts, widely split
Abdomen:
Tying thread
Thorax:
Brown-olive beaver, muskrat, silk, or other dry fly dubbin
Wing:
Matched slips of duck quill, upright and divided, mounted low aside the thorax and slanting rearward slightly
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Category: Fly Tying, Rusty Dunn Fountains of Youth
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