Jim Pray’s Thor

The Following is an excerpt from Steelhead Fly Fishing and Flies (1976)

The Eel received her usual complement of rain and anglers during steelhead season that got underway in September 1936. Storms raked the coast as they had for countless millenniums, but, as the year progressed, it seemed they were less frequent and gentler than in times past. Both visiting and resident fly fishers had caught many steelhead, but few battered 10 pounds. The river's quiet flow held constant in November, and the lower 25 miles remained clear.

Located here are the great fish-producing pools that balloon from the river's convoluted course like so many connected lakes. Moving towards the coast, there are Pollard, Long, East Ferry, Gully, Jetty, Pleasant Point, Harris, Palmer Creek, Grand Pit, Weymouth, Fernbridge, Snag, Lytel, Ellery, Dungan and Fillmore pools. Some are a mile long and require a boat, but their easy manner allowed silk lines to plumb pool depths and bring the attached fly near resting steelhead.

Now the balmy weather made fishing a slow game. The little activity experienced came on tidewater pools where the occasional bright fish could be hooked. Once in the river a day or so they became unresponsive, dourly finning in channels to the consternation of anglers who through the clear water could view this rejection. On November 26th, K. D. Roberts took a fourteen-pound, fourteen-­ounce steelhead from Dungan Pool using a Red Parma fly (red-bodied Parmacheene Belle). It was the largest so far and finished the season on a happy angling note. Heavy December rains had traditionally closed the river and sent rods to the closet shelf. It was known that some wonderfully large fish entered this month because bait accounted for a few, but ascending high and muddy water they were not for the fly man.

Days passed, and still the weather held. Tourists had long since departed and concerned themselves with the yuletide in distant cities. Optimistic Eel River residents prepared for an expected steel­ head run. Would fish now be available at a time foreign to the angler's fly-fishing experience? Answers were soon forthcoming. Mrs. Ralph E. Luick caught a sixteen-pound, one-ounce steelhead with a No. 8 Queen of the Waters on December 5th. Like many earlier arrivals, it came from Dungan Pool.

Anglers hoped this was a single impatient fish that had entered the Eel despite low, clear water. Enough rain fell two weeks later to color lower pools and bring in the awaited run. A sixteen-pound, ten-ounce steelhead hit a Polar Shrimp for B. R. Harris at Fern bridge Pool on Christmas Eve. Next day, and the size was pushed still higher. Clark Varian lived on the Eel. While waiting for the Christmas turkey to cool enough to carve, he took a five-minute fishing walk from his house and was quickly into a huge fish. Varian delayed his return long enough to beach the seventeen-pound, four­-ounce steelhead. Golden Demon was the fly used, a new pattern two years before. It was not an original with western tiers. Fred Burnham, and Zane Grey had brought the dressing back with them from New Zealand in 1933. It had been the rage throughout the Eel River's 1934 season, a popularity scarcely diminished two years later.

On Christmas evening, a respectable rain began to fall and lasted most of the night. By morning, the river was rising fast under an overcast sky. Walter J. Thoresen in company with Fred Blair and Frank Toby traveled from their Eureka homes to fish Dungan Pool. Only two miles from the Pacific, it had during fair weather been the one productive spot. Now rain made effective fishing difficult. They moved several miles upstream and rented boats at Fern bridge pool. Anchored on the river, Thoresen started casting.

He was well equipped for steelhead; a Hardy Perfect reel matched his nine-foot, seven-ounce Leonard rod; Ashaway silk line carried his fly out. To a nine-foot leader was attached a new fly by C. Jim Pray. Thoresen and Pray had been good friends since Pray's arrival in Eureka a few years before. The depression wiped out a real estate business he owned, and Pray had turned his hand to professional fly tying. He opened his own shop and living quarters on G Street between Third and Fourth Streets. Business had flourished, and shortly Jim Pray became Eureka's most respected commercial tier.

The flies he had given Thoresen were all on No. 6 hooks with the pattern carrying those proven Royal Coachman colors. On this day, on this river, the fly was a killer; Thoresen soon hooked and boated an eleven pounder and a matched pair a few ounces over ten pounds each. A commotion on the beach then momentarily drew his attention. A young boy who had been fighting a steelhead for many minutes was now gaining the upper hand. While his father nervously watched and gave instructions, the youngster slid his fish on the river's edge where it could be grabbed. Hoisted aloft, the fish looked huge. Proudly carrying his steelhead, he and his father headed for their nearby car.

Thoresen resumed casting. A slashing strike and heavy, powerful weight announced he had hooked an exceptional fish. The struggle was long, but the steelhead was well hooked. Immediately weighed after being boated, it brought the scales down to the eighteen-pound mark. One final steelhead of ten pounds came to Thoresen on this day of days. His California limit of five was filled; their weight totaled sixty pounds. His largest fish was entered in the annual Field & Stream fishing contest and won first place. Jim Pray now had a name for the fly that Thoresen had worked to such advantage. To honor his friend and the event, the pattern was called Thor. It has subsequently gone on to become one of the greatest in the steelhead fly fisherman's repertoire of standard dressings.

The boy that Thoresen had observed, and the boy incidentally, who watched Thoresen battle his fish, was Gene Silvius. His steelhead weighed fourteen pounds, fourteen ounces, and took first place in the Junior Division of the same contest. Gene's father, Lloyd, was an amateur fly tier and baker by trade. The fly used had been designed by Lloyd, and for lack of a better name at the time was called the Silvius White Bucktail. Most fishermen know it today by the name it was later called: Nite Owl.

What of the other catches described on the 1936 Eel River? Those mentioned filled the first five places in the top ten North American "rainbows" caught that year. It would be almost thirty years before another river in a single season so dominated the steelhead angling scene. That would come on a Skeena River tributary far north of the Eel. The 1936 steelheader didn't know and wouldn't have believed, that a little river with the unlikely name of Kispiox, flowing by an Indian camp by day and under the aurora borealis at night, would produce a steelhead twice the size of Thoresen's record catch. 

Thor Fly Pattern -

Dressing Notes

Thor (Classic) - Tail: Orange hackle fibers. Body: Red chenille. Hackle: Brown. Wing: White bucktail. Original Design: Jim Pray.

Thor (Reimagined) - Tag: Fine flat silver tinsel. Tail: Golden pheasant crest dyed red. Body: Red, seal or substitute organic or synthetic. Hackle: Long, brown or substitute widgeon flank. Wing: Fluorescent, white polar bear or bucktail. Cheeks: Jungle cock. Head: Black. Original Design: Jim Pray. Tied By Dave McNeese