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3. comparadun question, Page 2

that's a great story Spence. The hair from the deer's mask is fine hair with little flare to it, as you say, because it is not as coarse (hollow) as that from other parts of the hide. I've been tying up Comparaduns with woodchuck, snowshoe rabbit foot... does that mean they are not Comparaduns :). No matter what you use for winging, I swear by 'em. They are cheap, durable, and great floaters. I like to fish pocket water so they are perfect. I like the idea of using Z-lon too and plan to tie some up. Great thread everyone!

Check out on YouTube Craig Matthews tying his Sparkle Dun...Add a couple fibers in the tail of wood-duck or mallard...I've had good luck with this tie.

Spence

PS I like the snowshoe wing and as a tail/shuck as well.

Hi Spence. I also tie mallard or wood duck fibers in my shucks sometimes to get an imitation of a nymph tail and/or some barring and semblance of the nymph shape. Check Gonzo's trick with emerger shucks in his book. I imitate that in some shucks by tying an overhand knot with tying thread near the "tail" of the shuck, but I mostly do this with CDC shucks on straight shank hooks (such as sparkle duns and rs2's), not on klinkhamer styles. A microdrop of superglue holds the knot fast, at least for a while.

Louis,

Renee Harrop is using synthetic dubbing for a trailing shuck just above the tail instead of Z-lon. I keep meaning to try using the gray fluff I strip off of the lower part of a Partridge feather...Sometimes I have a difficult time tossing something out as waste...I keep thinking I'll use it for something. "So much to do and so little time!"

Spence

I keep meaning to nab a copy of Gonzo's book...

I like the long stranded antron dubbing for shucks on smaller bugs, especially small caddis. That grey fluff--I think some call it filoplume--might make a great shuck, especially for Baetis. You've given me an idea . . ..

Hello,
The Comparadun as mentioned earlier is an adaptation of Fran Betters Haystack. My cousin was very good friends with Fran and Jan and spent time with them years back both in NY and in the Keys.
We put a couple charts together for tying the comparadun along with a mayfly dubbing chart which shows the correct mixture ratio for the proper body color.
See sig file for the site.Hope the charts help.
Let me know what you think.
Barry

Louis,

I missed your reply from March somehow. I was talking about the fluff you strip away below the usable portion of the feather. The after-shaft is used for other things some secret...some not...Think Gartside's Sparrow for the not so secret parts...You should see the flies Mark (Softhackle) sent me from that Welienmann's fly tyer's site. Some nice softhackle ideas where you tie in one of these aftershaft feathers just behind your partridge or whatever. It adds an interesting angle to the softhackle idea. Real buggy!

Opening Day is this Saturday in Michigan! Tight lines to all you anglers out there and here's wishing you a wonderful fishing season...Be good to the streams and fish and each other and have some fun damn it! If the ash keeps spewing in Iceland we may be revisiting the ice age...There may be Grayling again someday in the Au Sable...It could happen! He, he! :)

Spence

Question raised on those sparkle duns is.....and I have never had a conclusive answer provided from the experts, is "What color zelon for the schuck? Some will tell you that a trailing shuck has no color. Others want a brown, the rusty brown seems the most popular, and what I use. Others will say a waving small amount of marabou works better, and will drop the butt below the surface, and prop the wing back on the sparkle dun because of the hook attitude in the water.

I've seen those clear shucks, but several anglers I trust say they are generally not good matches to a mayfly shuck. For mayflies the color depends on the bug, and it should be close to the color of the nymph. That does complicate things, though, because nymphs can vary, even in the same stream, under the same rock. I typically use brownish zelon for most of my shucks, but I've also had good luck with olive and dun for some baetids.

The larger the insect, the thicker the husk. The darker the insect, the more pigment in the husk. Both factors contribute to color. The chitinous exoskeletons of mid-sized aquatic insects are usually a lighter shade of the pupa/nymph prior to eclosion. If the nymph is really small and a fairly light shade, the husk will look almost transparent & colorless. By contrast, larger dark insects have exuviae that match the immature prior to ecclosion so closely that it is hard to notice the difference. Cream, pale amber, tan & brown cover the spectrum nicely. Though the clearest husks will often appear to the naked eye to have coloration similar to the adults when still attached, this is largely the eye being tricked. I have never observed detached olive or gray shucks (at least that that I remember), though the clear ones will often look gray on the water. This is not to say these colors won't work to fool fish, because they often do.

Husks can vary substantially from the color of the adult, so always work off the nymph. For example, Pale Morning Duns often come from dark nymphs that have correspondingly brown husks. Some baetids and many olive hued caddis who's adults may appear darker than PMD's have pale amber or tan husks.

Kurt wrote:

"The larger the insect, the thicker the husk. The darker the insect, the more pigment in the husk. Both factors contribute to color. The chitinous exoskeletons of mid-sized aquatic insects are usually a lighter shade of the pupa/nymph prior to eclosion. If the nymph is really small and a fairly light shade, the husk will look almost transparent & colorless. By contrast, larger dark insects have exuviae that match the immature prior to ecclosion so closely that it is hard to notice the difference. Cream, pale amber, tan & brown cover the spectrum nicely. Though the clearest husks will often appear to the naked eye to have coloration similar to the adults when still attached, this is largely the eye being tricked. I have never observed detached olive or gray shucks (at least that that I remember), though the clear ones will often look gray on the water. This is not to say these colors won't work to fool fish, because they often do.

Husks can vary substantially from the color of the adult, so always work off the nymph. For example, Pale Morning Duns often come from dark nymphs that have correspondingly brown husks. Some baetids and many olive hued caddis who's adults may appear darker than PMD's have pale amber or tan husks."

Wow! this is interesting and informative stuff. You can see a lot of thought and field work has gone into these comments.

Thanks for an excellent answer. I even asked Craig Mathews that question, and didn't get much of an answer as if it was of not much consideration, and inconsequential. It appeared to me that question was not asked very often. I reflected back on seeing all the chironomid husks on the water of a lake, and they appeared as cellophane, clear, and colorless. After reading Mike Lawson's fine book, SPRING CREEKS again (I'm still reading it) it appears to me that a Sparkle Dun tied on a caddis/pupa hook that would project the shuck angled down below the water surface, would fish better than a standard comparadun that would ride higher on the surface. The fact that trout see the reflection of insects approaching their window via the "mirror" gives the advantage to the sparkle dun I would think. And in flat water where they are viewed much better than in broken water.

Doublespey,

I'm not so sure about this, at least in every case. On the larger drakes I have seen the bug trying to free itself from the old "shuck" and it was basically trailing straight behind them. On top of the surface.

I posted some pictures on the large L recurvata a couple years back and had sat there in the slack water near the silt bank they were popping out from, and watched as they struggled to free themselves and they were stretched out straight as well on the surface. The surface tension is stronger, in a relative sense, than I think we perceive...It's a barrier, that if the bug is unable to breach it, it drowns there. If it makes it to the other side the tension is a "platform" where it can work to get loose and fly off.

I have had some great success with the Sparkle Dun. It works wonderfully here for the E invaria in May, for example, tied on standard dry fly hooks.

Spence

Actually, the mirror reflects what's beneath it, the stream bottom. With a flat calm "mirror" submerged objects can be seen reflected in the mirror. But a fly on the surface is seen as simply a distortion in that mirror -the surface film bending from the legs and body of the insect. For objects in or on the surface film visual details of any kind are not available to the fish. It's not until the fly hits the window that details can be seen.

Ah...I see your point: That a part of a fly extending through the surface might be more visible in the mirror -likely so -if the surface is truly flat calm. A "decision" could be made before the fly hits the window.

Don't quite know if this differs from your appraisal, but by using the caddis pupa hook, the shuck would poke below the surface, and be visible in the mirror for fish to see approaching the window. Mike states that in flat water as in lots of areas found on spring creeks that the foot prints appear as sparkles of light, dimples of light that fish use to distinguish approaching insects..made me think that some of my comparaduns that I thorax hackled around the wing might be a better choice on flat water. He has underwater photos to illustrate his point (no leg points intended) :) and to address Spence's point about the attitude of the trailing shuck, I would think possibly the wrong attitude one might think is wrong anyway still would fish better because of the refection viewed in the mirror by the fish.

Doublespey,

I have a Looped-Winged Emerger (different , but in the neighborhood of your Mr. Lawson's two-toned emerger) that I use a great deal that follows your reasoning very well and works just fine tied on a "scud hook"...When the nymphs are being intercepted as they scurry to the surface it also works well when the whole fly sinks somewhat...Between friends, let's just say it gets "damp"...;)

No Z-Lon on the above fly...

Good for Henny's, E invaria, and E dorothea...To name just a few...:) Oh! and them PMD's...

Spence

I think what you are shooting for is the ass-end of your fly breaking through the "mirror" and therefore seen by the fish...The trout gets a fair picture of this and I skip the Z-Lon in this case and make the section that would be below the surface as accurate as the real nymph as possible because it is going to be closely inspected...The two-tone of Mike's and my Looped-Wing are alike in that the rear portion appears as the nymph and the thorax as the color of the natural that is just about to emerge...Mike uses Z-Lon and I a fairly normal looking tail & abdomen. When I have tied Mike's verson I do so on a straight hook with the Z-Lon straight back...The trout still haven't told me whether it matters or not...;) They eat both of them...

Yes, that's what I was thinking/agreeing with.

Sounds like you are getting into Klinkhammer turf.

Paul,
Hey! You reminded me! I've been going over all my fly boxes that I take with me on the boat, and am constantly searching for, and can not find what I need. So I've been studying up on what's in them while watching tV. I never saw any Klinkhammers, and I know I tied a bunch of them up! Two flies have been found by my wife recently in the rug next to my recliner! I'll have to locate them somewhere else. That is a good pattern, and what I was thinking about.

The whole subject of the abdomen/shuck of the emerger hanging below the surface and thus very visible (and hence the key trigger) is the design criteria behind Bob Quigley's Cripple, and Mike Munroe's No-Ass Parachute. These highly successful patterns were both developed on Fall River, CA in the mid-seventies and were the first documented to address this issue. Both were featured in Fly Fisherman magazine at the time and have since spawned a host of knock-offs.

They addressed the problem from opposite perspectives though.

Bob focused on movement and impressionism - He was concerned with imitating the ethereal movement of an empty husk whose appendages unsupported by interior body mass flowed and waived in the current. His abdomen and tail of sparse marabou accomplished this perfectly. He also tied it with a sparse conventionally wound hackle behind a hair wing that slanted forward like a tiny steelhead skater. This last feature was intentional and is probably the most significant in establishing this pattern's reputation as a killer. Twitched or fished greased line on a controlled swing, it is still deadly.

Mike focused on accurate simulation of the nymph hanging suspended with the adult slipping out on the surface - though he knew tails were important, he thought the body and proper angle held suspended was even more important and left tails off so the body would not be impeded in assuming the proper position. We all messed with the softest hackle we could find for tails, but it still impeded the fly at times and actually proved far less effective over several years of field testing and use. Mike achieved the proper angle by slanting the wing post forward on a standard hook as opposed to using a curved shank hook (which didn't exist at the time). In the magazine article it is shown with the stripped quill body he preferred for smaller sizes, again to facilitate suspension at the proper angle. In the larger sizes (above 16) he used dubbing. The Klinkhammer is a copy. The hook and how the parachute hackle is tied off are the only differences.

Both designs are great producers depending on individual fish and circumstances. Mike's fly required a dead drift presentation while Bob's was more versatile and forgiving. Many a fish have been taken with the latter as it started to drag.:) This, perhaps more than any other reason, explains why Mike's fly was eclipsed in popularity by the Cripple only to be reintroduced many years later as the Klinkhammer.

On the motion notion you mentioned which exists with many emergers. Mike suggests you need to "twitch" your fly right before it enters the fishes window, and not in the window. The fish then "thinks" he saw the fly twitch that can trigger the strike. I can see I'm going to have to include some aspirin in my fly boxes.