Picture-Perfect Parachutes
Several methods are viable for tying off the hackle feather once it is wrapped, but most of them are relatively complicated. For far too long I was a staunch advocate of trapping the tip of the feather against the hook shank behind the eye with the thread, until I gave in and tried tying off the hackle feather on the post. Tying off on the post with an unobtrusive thread such as Gudebrod 10/0, Gordon Griffiths 14/0, or Giorgio Bennechi 12/0 eliminates any difficulties catching the feather, any chance of trapping fibers so they splay out and become disarrayed, and is easily mastered in far less time than other methods.
Using a synthetic wing material like McFlylon allows us to mount the wings on the hook using the spinner wing to upright method (yes, I just named the technique), which creates almost no bulk on the hook shank. Contrast this with bulky wing materials like calf body hair or turkey T-base feathers, and you’ll quickly see why McFlylon has an edge. While calf-body hair and turkey are super visible, tying them down creates a lump on the hook shank that is completely out of place on a slender little pattern like a Parachute Adams or Blue-winged Olive.This lump also makes it hard to form a smooth lifelike taper under the body.
McFlylon comes in a variety of visible colors—gray, white, and hot pink are standards in my fly box. I use gray wings when I want the most accurate match to the naturals, white when I want visibility under most conditions, and hot pink for weird light or along foam lines where the white winged flies just blend in.
The only other wing color I carry in my box is black, which is perfect for fishing in the evening when the sun is at a flat angle across the water and turns the surface to a sheet of silver. This afternoon glare can negate the visibility of nearly any wing color. Under these conditions, everything that was dark under the high sun is glaring white, and your previously visible fly disappears when it touches down. A black wing shows up like no tomorrow in this flat light.
I use a biot abdomen on my parachutes, though you can also use a completely dubbed body. I like the natural taper and color variation of smooth biot bodies, and find that they float longer than conventional dubbed-body flies. The solid biot body doesn’t soak up enough water to affect the floatation of the fly, while dubbing gets slimed when a fish eats the bug and is much harder to dry out and bring back to life. I even tie my Parachute Adams with a natural gray Canada goose biot body, and use dyed goose biots for every other parachute pattern I tie.
On a final note, I always dub the thorax of the fly to match either the abdomen color or the thorax color of the real insect. Some folks get all excited about matching the natural’s exact abdomen color, then go and leave bare thread for the thorax. If you are going to go to all the trouble to tie this fly, spend the extra five seconds to dub the thorax so the fly looks like it’s finished.
Charlie Craven owns Charlie’s Fly Box in Arvada, Colorado. His website is charliesflyboxinc.com.
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