The Parmachenee Belle was created by an American who lived in Brooklyn NY. This gentleman’s name was Henry Parkhurst Wells. H.P Wells was a lawyer and also a writer. Mr. Wells had written Fly Rods & Fly Tackle in 1885, The American Salmon Fisherman in 1886 and lastly City Boys in the Woods 1890. Two beliefs on the time frame that this fly was created are one by European historian Courtney Williams who believes that the fly was created in 1880 and two by an American historian J. Edson Leonard who stated the fly was created around the 1885 time frame. More recent evidence shows that this fly was created around the early1870’s. The fly was fished on lake Parmachenee in Maine were H.P. Wells used to camp at a site called Camp Caribou.
The Parmachenee Belle wet fly like the Fontinalis Fin, Trout Fin, Brookie Fin, Ibis and White were truly meant to be imitations of Trout fins. Back in the days of old bait fishermen would run out of bait and they would clip off the Brook Trout’s fins or a Rainbow or Brown trout's fin and place it on a hook and use it as bait. Trout would take these fins willingly. Now the Parmachenee Belle when created by H.P. Wells did not know what this imitated but knew that Trout found this fly to be very tempting.
In my day and age the Parmachenee Belle is a great Trout catcher in the state of Main on lakes and streams. In NJ, NY, PA I find this fly to work on a few different times. One, when no insect life is happening, two: when the water is high and off colored and three: on fast moving streams. I fish this fly on a size 6 hook on a 3X tippet on a Cortland Clear Intermediate sinking line. I have had a request by Dennis if I would explain how to marry wings. I will come back shortly and provide the pattern and tell how I tied this fly.


Until Then

Andy Brasko
AKA Antique Angler

I could not have written this brief history on this fly with out the Aid of T. Donald Overfield’s book 50 Favorite Wet Flies, Mary Orvis Marbury’s book Favorite Flies and Their Histories. The fly tied shown on this web site was tied by Andy Brasko using Ray Bergman’s book Trout. The Fly can be found on Plate Seven and at the back of the book the pattern that I used is listed.