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Tuesday October 2nd, 2007

Bob doesn't like hackles, which is fine - Paul and I do, and we have him outnumbered.

The recipe says use a '…size 12 down-eyed dry fly hook' so I did and my parachute dry turned out nothing like the prototype. I run a tying competition so I've heard that or something very similar countless times. Thing is, not all hooks are the same even if they are all "size 12 down-eyed dry fly hooks". For example:

All size 12 down-eyed dry fly hooks - from left to right - short shank wide gape then three which all claim to be the same. Look a little closer, measure the straight shank between the eye and the bend and you may be surprised to find these are more similar than they appear. (This is a single photograph so these are in proportion, whatever size they appear on your screen.)

Leaving aside the short-shank hook, clearly these three standard dry fly hooks differ: three makers, different bends, different angle at the eye - but in one key respect they are, for all practical purposes, the same - shank length.

Next thing that comes along; "how do I judge the size of hackle for a parachute pattern? Typical rule of thumb for collar-hackled dries (hackle wound around the shank) is the hackles barbs should be one and a half times the gape. Try that measuring exercise on those hooks again and you'll find the gape of all four is practically identical. Which is nice, but has little to do with parachute hackles?

If you've followed the reasoning so far, despite appearances both the shank and gape of these standard dry fly hooks is the same, meaning if the parachute post is in approximately the same position on the shank then the same hackle will suit all three hooks. More than that, because the gape is the same I could use that to judge barb length. Wonderful things, constants!

In practice it's just as easy to bend a hackle around the post:

and decide that's too long, don't like the barbs sticking out that far over the tail. Then try another,

narrower hackle, which looks about right to me. Which, oddly, in the web-free part of the hackle, has barbs which are one and a half times the hook gape. I don't know if this always holds true but it does for this selection of hooks and the others I've tried it with.

Magnus


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