The new wave of Parachute style flies adds a new dimension on how best to use this form of hackling to assist with balance and assisting the fly to sit right, as planned.

 

We do have options here as with Warryn’s Para Caddis; he used the half way positioning of the post on grub hooks, Mustad C49s but when tied in the fashion of this Stonefly, Caddis and Emerging Caddis and Mayfly patterns, it is another issue again and another area for debate.

I have often thought that fly tying is all about methods and proportions and after so many years tying flies, I have found no reason to change my mind.  But recently questions have come to pass about the correct positioning of the post on the hook shank whilst tying standard parachute hackled flies.

 

The reason I am trying to source the answer is that I have been asked to be a judge at a fly tying competition being run by Greenwell’s Fly Fishing Club in Albury NSW.  In discussing the various categories of the competition, I made the suggestion that a fly tied parachute fashion would be a good idea but this post business has opened a can of worms.

 

Who invented this style of hackling is a very debatable question in its own right.  Should the credit be given to Mr William Brush of Detroit who was granted a patent on a hook design to tie this fly in 1934?   All I can say is, “most likely.”

 

The story goes somewhat like this; it is all about hooks and patents and as far as I can glean, this hackling method was invented way back in the beginning of last century.

 

To open this part of the chat, let Peter Leuver take the rostrum, for he states in his Australian book, Fur and Feather, and I quote:  Helen Todd, a young lady from Scotland, came from a family of keen fly-fishermen.  Although she didn’t fish herself, her interest in fly tying led her to an apprenticeship with a firm called Wallace and Kerr of Edinburgh.  There she learnt her craft the old way without vices or tools of any kind, just her fingers.

 

She read an article in an American magazine where a writer suggested tying hackles by dividing them and tying them “spent”; this resulted in better floatability. The article stimulated her imagination and during the winter of 1931-32 she developed the Parachute Fly.  Alex Martin, the Glasgow firm she was working for at the time, patented and marketed the pattern in 1933.  They ceased production of all their other patterns to concentrate on the Parachute. The American who wrote the original article got a penny for each fly sold, while Helen Todd got nothing but praise.

 

What a nice lady but Peter also states: When Helen Todd tied wingless parachutes she used a pig’s bristle as a “mast”.  This was tied at right angles to the hook shank pointing up. Since then all sorts of methods have been used.  Hooks were manufactured with little masts “built in”; but their weight was a drawback.  Unquote.

 

The story of the Parachute hook is a bit complicated as every good story should be but it’s all about hooks and not the flies they tied on them

 

John Veniard claims in his book “A Further Guide to Fly Dressing”  that Alex Martin manufactured special hooks, so designed to make parachute hackled flies and is most probably correct but I have not been able to find a picture of that hook, nor anything with reference to a patent.

 

We know that the American, William Brush of Detroit, got his patent in 1934.

And would you believe, in the same year so did the House of Hardy in England.

 

William Brush applied for his patent in 1931 and it took three years for his application to finally come through in 1934.

Note the round bend and positioning of the post, actually at the two third mark on the shank where one would normally place wings.  Pic taken from Trout, by Ernest Schwiebert

As we can see by this picture he chose a Perfect Round Bend and placed the “Mast” roughly at the 2/3rds point on the hook shank as you would if tying in wings on a standard fly.

 

It is also interesting to note that the House of Hardy in 1934 were selling Parachute hackled flies on specially made “Hardy Hooks”.  They called the flies “Ride Rite”, British Patent Number 379343.

The hook featured in the 1934 House of Hardy Catalogue was a “Sproat” styled hook and the “Mast” was placed half way between the eye and the point.

 

The next on the list is an English made hook that was marketed by Herters Inc. Minnesota America. It was a true “Perfect Round Bend” and the “Mast” was placed half way between the outside of the eye and the barb, as you can clearly see in the pic below. We do not know the date of this hook but at a guess it would have to be sometime during the early 1940s (Herters was founded in 1937 and was declared Bankrupt in 1981; today the business is owned by Cabela’s). 

I am also told that Partridge made a Parachute Hook and if any come forward I would really appreciate the opportunity to photograph them. Please contact me if you have any that we can use.

 

So what’s the bottom line?  Personally I have always preferred to place the post half way from the start of the eye/shank and the point of the hook.  And it would look like the House of Hardy agrees with me, as you can see by their diagram.  In Peter Leuver’s book he has a page of diagrams explaining how to tie a new parachute hackled method and it is pleasing to note that he also places his post half way between the eye and point.

 

So there you are and after reading this you may say that is all up to preference and it may be so but there are those that look for guidelines, so I took a look at the Parachute methods in that great work by Ted Leeson and Jim Schollmeyer, “The Fly Tiers Benchside Reference”, to get a modern interpretation and they place the post half way between the outside of the eye and the point of the hook.  

 

T R Henn wrote a little known book entitled Practical Fly Tying in 1950 and I have photographed a section of page 23 as there are couple of points of interest that should be included in this discussion.  

Interestingly it would seem that the House of Hardy were still promoting their Ride Rite flies some 16 years later and that the hooks and flies were proprietary, due to the patents on these hooks.

 

But the one that caught my eye was where Henn place the “mast” on the drawing of the Parachute Hook precisely on the two thirds mark of the shank.  Could this mistake be, as he states, that because of patents there were no tying instructions available.

 

What Size Hackle?

Another question that keeps popping up is what size hackle should be used.  In Veniard’s “Fly Dressers Guide” 1964 (some thirty years later) we see another important aspect of this discussion. Pictures show that the flies featured as tied by Alex Martin’s company were all tied as “Variants”, which is a style of fly that is tied with very long hackles.  The guideline for a Variant Hackle is a Game Cock Hackle, 1.5-2 times the normal hook size and some prefer larger than that.  It should also be noted that the House of Hardy used the same “Variant” style of hackling. 

Back in the early days of the 1900s “Variant” styled hackles may have been the choice for parachute hackled flies but ideas change and today a standard hackle is more the norm than not.  I know there are those who will disagree by stating they like their hackle a little longer, or shorter, than the standard length of shank guideline.  We could say that nowadays it would have to be a matter of choice.

 

But where did this long hackle idea we call Variant come from? Well from what I can glean it comes from a man that studied “Altered Refraction” and that was Dr Baigent of Northallerton in England.

It was way back in 1876 that the Doctor started tying flies seriously with his theory on light refraction.  He would tie his flies with two hackles, one the standard size, followed by another much longer, game cock hackle.  He gave some of his patterns and variations to his fishing friends. Over time it was his fishing friends that started to call his variations “Variants” and so the name stuck.

 

In reading my copy of “The Fishing in Print” by Arnold Gingrich, he writes of Baigent, stating: Baigent worked on a problem of fly design which he called “altered refraction.”  The writer corresponded with the doctor, but did not grasp the import of what Dr. Baigent was trying to do until sometime later.  Apparently, Dr Baigent knew that light reflection from, or passing around, narrow filaments such as the wing veins, legs and tail of natural insect, and subsequently being bent or refracted as it entered the water, would show tiny bands of coloured light, i.e., red or blue on either side of the filaments.  Undoubtedly what Baigent was trying to do was to reduce the visibility and therefore the falsity of the artificial by using a hackle that contained pigments which would neutralize the effects of this particular lighting.  In other words, red pigment neutralizes a red light, and blue pigment neutralizes a blue light. Unquote.

 

There is a lot to think about here as Gingrich states that English game birds were very rare in America, as they are here in Australia.

 

Arnold Gingrich wrote his thoughts on colour neutralization, reds and blues.  Today we associate the ultra violet and its effects on colour in so many of our fly tying materials.  But we have the next best thing, Whiting Farms Coq de Leon.  I used my ultra violet torch on some Coq de Leon Saddle Hackles and they reacted to the light, as did some of the saddle hackles that had been cross bred with Coq de Leon from Hebert Farms.  I obtained them a lot of years ago before they were bought out by Whiting.  It should be noted that under the blue UV light they did not explode with colour but there was a reaction.

 

It is interesting to note that Tom Whiting has been blending Coq de Leon with his birds as did Hebert and Tom has taken them to the next level of excellence.

 

The big question is what the next generation of hackles are going to look like.  Maybe standard size hackles that are as speckled and as translucent as Coq de Leon and throw all sorts of, as Dr. Baigent would say, “Altered Refraction”.   You have to ask yourself just how far ahead of his time was this man?    

 

Again, what about Roy Christie's work with his reversed Parachute hackles and those blended body colours with a hint of UV?  You can read his story on this website; see link below.  

So is there any conclusion? Well, that’s up to you.  I do believe in tying the post in centre of the shank for standard patterns, as they please my eye and I know they work.

 

But we have another inclusion in today’s world and that of hooks with shapes that also enhance Parachute hackles, especially those tied as emergers, such as grub hooks, swimming nymph hooks, Czech Nymph hooks, Klinkhamer and Klinkhamer Extreme and they all give us new dimensions.