How to Tie a Catskill-Style Hendrickson

Producer: Tim Flagler

Matt Grobert includes all the standard measurements and techniques for tying a traditional Catskill-style Hendrickson, a favorite of Art Flick’s and one of the flies that helped define that region’s style of tying.  Roy Steenrod named the original fly after angler A. E. Hendrickson in the 1910s, a period in which the dry fly was just becoming popular in America.

As Grobert says on his blog: “In the video, I use two hackles to show how that is/was done, as that is how I learned to tie this style fly many years ago.  Back then, 1960-70’s, we didn’t have genetic rooster capes, instead we tied with Indian rooster cape hackle, which was shorter with fewer hackle barbs than what is available today.  Now I mostly tie them with one hackle from a genetic cape tied in in front of the wing and wrapped back to the body and then forward again.  We’ll show you this method at a later date.  Also, the original Hendrickson was tied with pink urine stained fox fur for the body, but I tied it here with rabbit since that is more widely available.”