Is there a special way to wind hackle on so as when the fly is finished and you drop it on your tying desk and it lands upright? Mine don’t. What am I doing wrong?
Yes it’s called a parachute hackle. But assuming your talking about a classic dry fly, check your proportions. The wings should be evenly divided and on top of the hook shank. If they are cocked to one side, that may be the problem. Even if tied correctly they may not land perfectly upright 100% of the time.
Jay
What works for me is to cut the bottom of your hackle off even with the hook point. Your fly rides a little lower , but looks more realistic ( IMHO ).
Life is like a fly swap…You never know what your going to get.
It’s all proportions, but it’s hard.
Despite significant help from this board, I’ve pretty much given up.
Bill Heckel, a fly-tier here in the Chicago area, came up with the following pattern (mine are a little bit different from his).
[url=http://www.danica.com/flytier/sschwartz/half_spent_bwo.htm:33853]http://www.danica.com/flytier/sschwartz/half_spent_bwo.htm[/url:33853]
The biot underneath the hook splits the hackle in half. Due to the natural curve of the hackle, you might have to do a little preening. I also cut away any stray fibers, but the amount I cut is a lot less than would be cut creating a modern thorax tie as suggested above.
Vince Marinaro suggested something similar in “The Ring of the Rise.” Datus Proper’s tounge in cheek-named “Perfect Dun” used dubbing figure-eighted under the hook to separate the hackle - creating the same effect.
For a really cool fly, check out Roy Christie’s Easy Peasy USD Mayfly which was a FOTW in the fourth quarter of last year.
Despite supposedly “sitting lower” in the water, I believe these flies have good floatability because of all the hackle sitting on top of the meniscus.
-Steven
Are you fishing on table tops? 
Tie on a tippet and dop it in your tub for a more true test.
It’s in the proportions…be sure the tail is long enough and the wings are set correctly–nto too far forward and evenly split on top of the shank. The hackle size should not matter…but if you prefer a large hackle collar then your tails need to reflect that.
The advice given by the others is good info. Here’s something I found in an article from the old Midwest Flytyer site.
The author advocated trimming the bottom of the hackle flat. Not so much as to get too close to the hook just enough to make it flat. He stated that the fly would land upright 10 out 10…I tried it, and it really works.
Rich
[This message has been edited by quillg (edited 11 February 2005).]
Wow, does this mean I’ve done something right. Me,I’m a saltwater fisher and just for grins I’ve tried my hand at tying some streamers and dry flies. Why I did it I don’t know but I tossed the dries up and let them land on tying bench and they landed upright. Damn, even an blind hog finds an acorn every now and then.
Leo C.
Bobby, all of this is great advise and most of us are constantly playing around with wings, tails and hackle to get the darn things to float properly.
I am not a stickler for brand names and product #'s of hooks, but I do use mustad most of the time and I know they have at least two differant hook diameters of dry flies.
I use both, but find the same fly on the heavier diameter hook land upright more often than the finer wire hook. This is because the hook tip portion back and up to the hook bend (near the tail) is what gravity pulls into the water to cause an upright fly.
Anyway as a rule of thumb I use the fine wire hook more for parachute and emerger patterns and the heavier wire hook for the heavier hackled flies. Even then I end up clipping the hackle on many of them, there are however a few that land upright most of the time with full hackle in tact. -Yaf
Hi Bobby…you’ve asked a great question and have gotten alot of good advice. One thing I can add is the importance of tail “splay”. I shoot for at least a hook gape splay on my drys. It’s easy to do by making a small thread ball and tying down the fibers aginst it. This makes the tail act as a little outrigger to keep the fly upright. I also adds a parachute affect as the fly settles to the water during the cast.
Good luck!..Jason
Bobby,look at the beginning of the Faol page,at the bottom is a great feature called “Flies Only”. take a gander and the answer is there for you.
Philip
I look into… my fly box, and think about all the elements I should consider in choosing the perfect fly: water temperature, what stage of development the bugs are in, what the fish are eating right now. Then I remember what a guide told me: ‘Ninety percent of what a trout eats is brown and fuzzy and about five-eighths of an inch long.’ - Allison Moir.
I do a table top test that seems to work for me. Most of my Catskill ties WILL land upright on a table if tossed in the air. The test for proportions I like is to sit the fly on the table. It should balance perfectly between the tail, hook, and hackle tips. If the hook doesn’t touch the table, your hackle’s too big. If the hackle doesn’t touch, or the fly lists over, your hackle’s too small. I find that if my fly passes the table test, it will perform beautifully on the water. If my wings are too tall, the fly can keel over or go face down in the water. I always fight getting too high a wing, for some reason it’s natural for me to want too much wing. The other thing that’s very important I think, is to have a perfect “V” with your wings. The V shape will make the fly naturally float down right side up, it’s basic aerodynamics. If the V’s crooked, the landing will be crooked. Watch how your fly behaves in the water, and then correct that the next time you tie. Proportions are the key, but peoples ideas of proportions vary somewhat. Make the fly do what YOU want it to. You can cut a “V” in the bottom of the hackle too, but you shouldn’t have to. It might make for a better profile anyway.
Eric