Tying a Better Compara-dun
[Excerpted from Tying Dry Flies edited by Jay Nichols (Stackpole Books, 2009). The Editor.]
The United States is blessed with some of the world’s most innovative and well-known fly tiers. Mention the names Lefty, Clouser, or Barr to most fly fishers and they instantly know who you’re talking about. But it has been some of the least heralded fly tiers—a senior from the Trout Unlimited chapter in my home town, my father, and a quiet fly-fishing guide from the Delaware River—who’ve had the greatest impact on my fly tying.
James “Jimmy” Charron was well respected by the upper Delaware River guiding community. Al Caucci and Bob Nastasi, authors of Hatches II, knew Jimmy and mentioned him in the beginning of their book. Jimmy guided for Caucci’s Delaware River Club but he was not a famous fly fisher. Outside a small corner of the Catskill Mountains, he was largely unknown.
Jimmy didn’t invent great or famous fly patterns. What he did was tie the great patterns better than the tiers who invented them. Jimmy wasn’t a gregarious or boastful person who sought the spotlight. Severe health problems, combined with years of clawing and scratching to make a living as a fishing guide, often left him surly, introspective, and distant. So, when Jimmy offered to share his method for dressing Compara-duns with me, I was initially surprised, and then gratefully accepted.
Compara-dun Evolution
The Compara-dun is one of the best known and most effective dry-fly patterns, and for good reason. Part of its beauty lies in its simplicity. Compara-duns are tied with three materials: deer hair, Microfibetts, and dubbing. When these materials are correctly lashed to a hook, they form a high-floating, durable, visible dry fly most trout can’t resist.
Compara-duns are also versatile—easily adapted to imitate any mayfly species by simply changing the body color and hook size. Often, the Compara-dun is the first dry fly a new tier learns. Inexpensive materials, combined with its perceived ease of construction, make it a favorite with fly-tying instructors and beginners.
Like most great fly patterns, the Compara-dun wasn’t created overnight. It evolved from other dry-fly patterns, and the evolution continues today. The Compara-dun was preceded by the Haystack, which was popularized by legendary fly tier and fly fisher Fran Betters, in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. Betters uses deer hair for the Haystack’s roughly tied tail and wing. The pattern often appears messy, but there’s a purpose for its disheveled look.
The Haystack’s bulky wing and tail contain a maximum amount of deer hair, vital for floating the fly in the heavy pocketwater that characterizes the Ausable and other Adirondack trout streams. Its body is loosely dubbed, trapping air in the dubbing wraps to aid floatation.
The Haystack is a great dry fly, but Al Caucci believed it needed refinement for the flat, glassy pools of his home water. Caucci used hackle fibers for his fly’s tail, instead of deer hair. Hackle fibers offer a sparse, natural appearance on flat water. They are less buoyant than deer hair, but that loss is negligible in placid currents. Caucci also tightly dubbed his fly’s body, giving it a slender, more exacting look.
Perhaps Caucci’s most significant alteration to the Haystack involved the wing. Haystack wings often slant forward, with the deer-hair tips leaning over the hook eye. Caucci tied his wing at a 90-degree angle relative to the hook shank, and then forced it to lean backward with dubbing to more accurately mimic the silhouette of mayfly wings. Caucci’s new pattern worked well, and the Compara-dun was born.
Compara-dun Variations
Most new fly-fishing and tying concepts are based upon preexisting methodologies. And other tiers have adapted the Compara-dun to solve their own trout-fishing riddles. Western fly tier Craig Mathews added a Zelon trailing shuck to the Compara-dun to create his Sparkle Dun. At first blush, this seems like a small change. But as fly fishers began to understand the importance of imitating exact moments in the mayfly lifecycle, the Sparkle Dun became one of the most effective dry flies of its time. The translucent trailing shuck gives the impression of an emerging mayfly temporarily subdued in the water’s surface film, an easy meal for trout.
Like those before me, I’ve also modified the Compara-dun. My Compara-chute is a combination of the Compara-dun, Sparkle Dun, and parachute, but with hackle tied on the underside. I use a bent-shank hook, originally designed for my Truform fly series (Daiichi 1230), which ensures the wing slants over the body like a natural, and to aid in hackling. The parachute hackle imitates the circular impression of legs, and provides slightly better floatation on rough water.
The fly’s only drawback is that it’s slightly more complicated to tie than a standard Compara-dun or parachute. But it acts and looks a little different on the water. And sometimes that’s what it takes to inspire a wise old trout. [For details on tying Weamer’s Truform flies, see the May 2006 issue. The Editor.]
Ultimately, Caucci even modified his own Compara-dun. He replaced the fly’s original hackle-fiber tail with Microfibetts. Synthetic Microfibetts absorb less water than hackle, increasing the pattern’s buoyancy.
Copyright © 2012 Intermedia Outdoors
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