My favorite go-to dry fly is a parachute Adams and I've finally decided to take a whack at tying them.
The white parachute post looks like it can be intimidating to tie, at least judging by the few YouTube videos I've watched.
Calf body hair and coarse polypropylene yarn are the two materials mentioned in the videos I've seen.
Is one of these materials better than the other?
Is there some other material I should consider for the post?
My biggest concerns are ease of handling, best floating properties, and visibility.
Also, I treat my flies more like ammo than works of art at this point, if that makes a difference. I'm just not that good.
Anyway, I would appreciate your suggestions.
Forgive me for this LOOONNNGGG post, but I have explain why I tie a parachute the way I do. I hope it is helpful.
I use polypropylene macrame cord or Plastic Canvas Yarn. It is cheap, white, and a lifetime supply. It can be used on large or small flies.
Here is a smaller parachute Adams I tied. I think it is a size 18 or 20. You can see that for small Adams I do not dub a body but use a thread body to keep a slim body profile.
Pepperell Braiding Vibrant Yellow Macrame Braid Craft Cord - Walmart.com
Amazon.com: Pepperell 6mm Bonnie Macramé Craft Cord, 100-Yard, White
The advantage of a yarn is that you can loop it under the hook before tying it on the hook. Then you avoid a "bump" on top of the hook from tying calf trail in on the top. You can "spread" the yarn fibers a bit below the hook and you get a more even taper of the body.
I don't do this myself, but for those that have a problem with the bulk of other materials like calf tail, polypro yarn is an easier material to work with.
Another advantage of yarn is that you can cut the upright wing to length and you do not need to tie it to length as with calf tail. Any natural material that has a natural taper to it looks better when it is measured and tied to length.
The third advantage of yarn is that it is easy to use the same amount of material for each fly. Since the yarn itself is divided into specific thicknesses, you can easily subdivide the yarn into lengths that have exactly the same thickness of material and you no longer have to grab and guesstimate the amount of natural material to tie in. Just cut a section of yarn and tie it in.
The fourth advantage of yarn is storage. Calf tail, calf body hair, etc, takes up more room for the same amount of useable material as yarn. Yarn can be compressed, rolled up, and multiple colors can be placed in the same small zip lock sandwich bag. For a travel kit, it is a very space efficient material.
The fifth advantage of yarn is that it has no smell. Natural materials when stored with moth balls or other but preventives can leave traces of the chemical on the material. If lick you fingers when you tie, yarn will leave no chemical traces on your fingers.
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Here is a older post that explains how I tie a parachute adams and why I whip finish the hackle off on the post and NOT behind the hook eye.
Note that in both the flies above, the hackle and the fly is finished by whip finishing the hackle on the base of the parachute post. There is no tie off behind the hook eye and
this guarantees that there will be NO hackle trapped by the tie off and that you will get a clean hook eye!
Before I explain why I tie the Parachute Adams as I do, I must explain that a Parachute Adams is NOT an imitation of a dry fly as most fly fishers believe. It is actually as late stage emerger.
To quote Gary Borger from his Fly Fisherman magazine article, Film Flies:
“Most fly fishers think of the Parachute Adams as an adult dun imitation, but in reality it is an emerger. In stage 3 the nymphal or pupal body is just under the film and the legs are spread out on the surface to support the body. The body sticks almost straight up, with the wings plastered tightly along the top of the thorax as they continue pulling up and out of the wing pads.
Light reflecting off the upright body with the wings plastered tight along the top, gives the emerging insect a shining, light-colored look.
Still not convinced? Toss a Parachute Adams in a glass of water and view its position.”
A fly IN the film and not ON the film is an emerger as Gary Borger points out in his blog.
Gary Borger Parachute Flies, Stage 3 Emerger
For a deeper understanding, get his book Fishing the Film
https://www.amazon.com/Fishing-Film-Fly-Book/dp/0962839272
An emerger sits with the body of the fly in or on the water. The hackle of a parachute Adams is ABOVE the body, therefore the hackle supports the body in or on the film. The deeper in the film the body of the parachute sits, the earlier the stage of emergence and the more time the fish will believe it has to take the fly. As emerger is trapped IN the film and this is why emergers are more effective than true dry fly patterns.
Examine a dry fly hackle feather. You will see that it has a natural curve to the fibers and it has a shiny side and a dull side. The shiny side is convex and the dull side is concave.
When you decide to tie a parachute, you must decide whether you will tie the hackle so that the the tips of the fibers curve down toward the water and extend below the body of the fly (the fly will ride higher and the fly is supported on the tips of the fibers), or whether you will tie the hackle so that the tips of the fibers curve up away from the water (the fly will ride low with the body in the water and the fly supported by the shafts of the fibers, tips curving up and away from the water).
If you want the fly to ride low in the water, tie the hackle so that you rotate the hackle around the post, shine side down and dull side up, tips of the fibers curving away from the water. This is my preference.
This upward curve of the hackle allows the body of the fly to ride IN the film AND with the feather curving AWAY from the bottom of the post, it is easier to Whip finish the hackle on the post.
Charlie's Fly Box (
Charlie's FlyBox - Colorado's Best FlyShop and online Fly Tying Tutorials) shows the method for a low riding parachute. Note how the body of the fly is well below the the hackle and would ride in or below the film when supported by the hackle. This is where the nymphal body of an emerger positions itself. On the final side view, I would use a much shorter post, since the the post mimics the body emerging from the nymphal husk. When this pattern gets wet or the tail fibers do not support the back of the fly, it acts even more like an emerger, with the body sinking well below the surface film. One can substitute zelon for the tail fibers to imitate the nymphal shuck just as the sparkle dun did for the comparadun.
Charlie whip finishes the hackle behind the hook. I whip finish on the post. The directions for how to tie in and post the hackle follows.
You can determine how the hackle fibers will wrap by whether the shiny or dull side of the hackle is against and facing the post as you tie in and “post” the feather up the post before winding it down. You will see what I mean after a few tries.
I tie so the concave (dull) side is toward the post. When I bend the hackle stem back 90 degrees from vertical to horizontal away from the post, the concave side will be facing up. As I wind the the hackle down the post, it will be concave up. Do the opposite if you want the concave side down.
I should note that some hackles will twist on the first wrap, so if your hackle does that, just reverse the side that faces the post to account for the twist.
Now let's assume you have posted the hackle but not wrapped it down the post. You have tied in the tail and now you will dub the body and thorax including in front of the post and behind the hook eye.
Finish the dubbing so the thread is hanging off the back side of the hook just BEHIND (tail side) of the post. Then take the thread, and instead of taking it around the hook again, bring it around the post so it is hanging ahead of and on your side (front) of the hook.
Next wind the hackle down the post clockwise as seen from the top of the post. When it gets down to the bottom, take the thread around the hackle and post in a clockwise fashion and whip finish on the post. After two turns around the hackle as in the photo below, cut the hackle off and whip on the post with fly still in a horizontal position.*
Once you have whip finished and cut the tread, you can add some more security by using a bodkin to put a drop of THIN head cement on some of the lower hackle fibers. Capillary action will suck the head cement along the hackle and into the post.
Some reposition the fly like the Klinkhammer below but I just whip finish on the post in the vertical position.
Dry Flies Patterns: November 2011
Here’s a video on whip finishing the hackle on the post.
Fly tying techniques - Parachute hackle - YouTube
You can also use the way Charlie Craven does it. He ties off on the post but whips behind the hook eye.
Charlie ties left handed so you will need to look at it in the mirror to get a right handed view.
The key direction is this image: