Parachute Peacock Spider – Dry Fly
This season’s best dry fly for trouts and chars. It stays firmly on surface, drift naturally, and appeals with just enough stimulation by peacock body. Good from late spring to autumn. My don’t-leave-home-without-it pattern. I just tied another 12 of this for fly swap.
Prior to usage, please apply floatant on hackle only, so that the peacock body is kept under surface. Long hackle changes its shape randomly over time which helps keeping fish interested in this object.
You can replace peacock with any dark dubbing fiber which will make the fly just Parachute Spider (shown below).
Background of This Pattern
Original pattern is Catskill dry fly, but I never had good result when I tied one as specified recipe on normal fly hook. It was very wiggly and didn’t stay firmly on surface.
Then I saw northern anglers in Japan using parachute patterns with large diameter coot hackle scarcely wrapped on emerger hook imitating crane fly. It stays on surface nicely, but it doesn’t stay afloat for long.
And there is Japanese traditional fly pattern used for tenkara which happens to be a soft hackle fly made with cock neck with peacock body which you can fish as dry and wet.
Historically proven designs falling into the hands of lazy fly tier with minimal effort. This fly starts as spider, you can trim off the hackle to your designated shape to mimic pretty much anything. You can take away the hackle to have your gnat.
Parachute Peacock Spider
Hook: Gamakatsu C12-B #10-16
Thread: Uni thread 6/0 Brown
Parachute Post: Tiemco Aero _Dry Wing Salmon Pink (never use white or yellow)
Body: 3 strands of peacock herl twisted
Hackle: Cockneck brown
You take the peacock out, then you have just Parachute Spider.
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