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3. A Klinkie Comparadun?

I have been thinking about this idea for a few days. I have a bunch of Klinkhammer 15BN size #14 hooks (and #16s too) that are too big for what I thought I was buying them for. Rather than collecting dust any longer I have been thinking about using them as an emerger for some of the bigger drake mayflies. So tonight I decided to try my crazy idea and make a comparadun emerger pattern on a size #14 15BN Klinkhammer. I have no idea how well this will work, but you can't fail if you don't try.

How would that not work? Nice stuff Johnny boy, CJ

That's a killer looking fly, John. My experiments with down angled shucks haven't proved all that successful, perhaps because they never floated right. Never tried them on Klink hooks before though. If it will float upright, your version is the most natural looking pose I see most of the naturals make at this stage. Let us know how they work!

Thanks, hopefully it works.

I am thinking of trying a couple variations to tie as well. Maybe a 2-3 wraps of hackle behind the wing, clipped short underneath the hook. Also, I might try one wing laying down and one wing up to help the fly float. If nothing else, I will have found a way to use up these bigger Klink hooks.

Very pretty fly. Not sure it'll sit right, as is.

In Comparaduns, and most fully dry patterns, tend to need the tail to support it. I've played with such tail down designs before and found a lot of buoyancy and/or grip on the surface film is needed up front to support that much drowned mass behind -which is what the Klink has.

A thought: Try moving the Antron up the shank so that it supports more of the shank in the surface film, allowing only the tail end of the shank and bend to submerge. It would add a leggy look upfront, -like a split shuck. Finish with a nymph tail. Just a thought. Drop em in the sink and see what posture you get. Will probably still be a flat water fly.

Mine also tended to float on their sides in small sizes, but the large Klink hook might change that dynamic. The problem was even after soaking the shuck thoroughly, false casting dried them out enough to get trapped in the film. Until they started to sink altogether... :)

I really like the large Klink hook sizes John, though for a different purpose. I tie them in size 14's & 12's to pattern except black bodied. It is one of my go-to Summer attractor dries. Perhaps it's taken for a drowning terrestrial of some type? Anyway, I wouldn't leave home without it.

John,
I love those Partridge BN15 for tying quigley cripples. I have fooled a good many fish that way including my best ever dryfly (I guess technically half wet fly) trout; a brown well over the 22" mark.
I use 3-4 wood duck or mallard flank feather fibers for the tails, then twisted straight zelon for the abdomen thorax is dubbed the color of the dun with the wing complex directly in front so the hook sits perpendicular to the surface of the water.
JW

Johnw, I agree with you but I love the new wing design and overall look. Hopefully, this one doesn't fail like the last 2 new fly designs I created. This weekend I hope to have time to try it in some water.

BTW, I just ordered the other night some of the newer klinkie extremes, or what ever they are called, in sizes 18, 20, & 22s. I sure hope these are not 4 times their size!

John,
Don't get me wrong your fly looks gorgeous. I was just offering an alternate use for those seemingly monstourously oversized hooks.
JW

JohnW, I have tied those klinkie/quigley-style flies and they work great. I get in creativity moods where I want to tie something radically different by the end of winter.

About this same time 2 years ago I had the hair-brain idea for a new pattern that I am still testing...





http://flypatternsfortrout.com/2012/03/10/making-a-more-natural-looking-emerger-dun-mayfly-pattern/

By this time of winter I have tied tons of flies, although not neatly organized like Matt. Tying flies relaxes me after a long day on computers. I just dump the flies as I tie them in washed out, 2" high, plastic salad containers. That is after I have finished eating the salad in them. :-)

Not giving up on my new crazy idea yet and too tired to keep working on a computer I decided before retiring tonight to tie the same pattern but adding some hackle before and aft the wing, trimmed underneath the hook shank. Also, I used super fine dubbing in two colors for the body. So here it is....



BTW, my hackle is shorter than the hair wing, because the hair wing is about 1" long and I don't have good dry fly hackle that long!!

Wiflyfisher wrote:

"JohnW, I have tied those klinkie/quigley-style flies and they work great. I get in creativity moods where I want to tie something radically different by the end of winter.

About this same time 2 years ago I had the hair-brain idea for a new pattern that I am still testing..."

That fly is very similar to a fly I have been fishing the past couple of years with great success. I can post some pictures of the version I've been tying when I get home.

What kind of hook have you been using? I used to bend the first 1/3 of any dry fly hook up with tools, but that was before I found the Daiichi 1230 Weavers Truform hook. I don't really like bending hooks if I don't have to. The only bad thing I have to say about the 1230's, is that some of the smaller sizes (14-16 I think) could be a bit heavier gauge.

A couple versions, they both work

Sulphur on on a Gamakatsu C13U :



Hendrickson on a bent shank 2xl dry fly hook:

I'm loving it! Seems the best way to overcome those wintertime blues is to wrap some flies!

I'm heading downstairs now to tie and peek at my Wings and MSU on the big screen.

Keep em coming boys!

Spence

I like those patterns and the Gamakatsu C13U hook!! Thanks!

Spence, I thought I heard when you went out West last summer you decided to become a trout bum in West Yellowstone and live happily ever after.

Nah... He'll never move away from his beloved Au Sable... ;)

John, I recently wrote you a wonderful PM, poetic through and through, but it took me so long to compose it my login timed out and I couldn't find the darn thing! I'm pretty sure you are a lucky man, cause I'm too lazy to try and recompose it. :)

Ahh...Montana! Yes I was lucky enough to revisit Big Sky Country/The Last Best Place last summer. Fished for two weeks and was joined by my wife for the two week trip home. It was our 25th.

We stayed a couple nights in good old Cabin 4 at the Campfire Lodge...Forever known now as the "Love Shack" by my fishing buddies...In fact a couple of them have taken to calling me that...I hope this will pass.

I stopped in to see Slattery and company and had breakfast there one morning before my wife showed up to talk with him about his friend Mark Libertone. Unfortunately Mark never had the chance to visit there himself and passed sometime soon thereafter.I hope he would of been pleased we were thinking about him. I had told him I was going to visit there on my trip.

Heading back out again this summer, but instead of a month away from home, it should be 10 days or so. I have a couple floats set up on the Bighorn on the way out, and a float on the Madison as well. Maybe this year out I'll get Sayfu to meet up with me and fish a day with me.

I have a couple trips planned to Grayling area...Kurt is right, my wife has realized, even post retirement, that she'll be dropping my ashes discretely into the old Au Sable...Because I won't be leaving Michigan on a permanent basis. :)

I have a very special trip planned sometime this summer. One of my PA Boys, JohnW, is going to fish with me...Last April I was spoiled by those guys and fished PA with Tony, Eric, Bruce, Louis, and got to meet with Shawn one day on Spring Creek. Poor John was being worked hard then and couldn't make it, but he's coming my way...All work and no fishing makes John a dull boy! :)

I have a couple floats set up for us with the two best guides on the river...They will remain nameless here so I don't piss off the rest of them. :) John will get the grand tour and will be fished so hard he'll have to have his rotator-cuff looked at when he gettings home.

Back to flies...I promised myself not to hijack threads anymore. Tim Neal from Grayling and contributor on this site has been giving the PA Boys tying lessons...He has been giving them the skinny on the Robert's Yellow Drake. Tim was a neighbor, when he was young, of Clarence Roberts and has tied so many of them in his professional tying career that he can tie them, the pattern, down to a size 18 Olive! He even sent me one for the Ephoron hatch!

Maybe we could get Tony and Eric to post some of their versions of the fly...They have been sending them to me...The pattern, in their hands, has now been tied for their famous Green Drake! They look really cool, deadly, but maybe they want to keep them under wraps until they can try them out on Penn's Creek.

Spence

Spence, I think I will change the wording for cabin #4 on the website to the "Love Shack", that might help attract a different, younger crowd for Jim that will pay more. http://www.campfirelodgewestyellowstone.com/cabin4.asp

Campfire Lodge's setting on the Madison River is drop dead gorgeous and all the facilities are great. The campfire Lodge breakfast always packs them in from all over the area. It sure beats sleeping in an expensive hotel in West Yellowstone where the only noises you hear are cars driving by. There is nothing like walking out your cabin door early in the morning with a cup of coffee and seeing bugs flying over the river and the birds calling. Of course, you were probably still in bed in the "Love Shack". :-)

I hope to make the trip out to West Yellowstone again this summer. Jim keeps asking me.

Did you stop in the Driftless area?

Spence,
Good thing I am an Occupational Therapist and can work on my own rotator cuff. I'll be sure to pack the bengay and kinesio tape.
As for your beloved Robert's Drake I can now attest to it's effectiveness in that #18 baetis color scheme. Of course a few improvements needed to be made
So as to make it a PA BOY fly. ;)

John S...I pulled up the Montana stuff from last summer...The cabin no 4 is there and further down me sitting on the Madison.

Spence