Parachute posts

My recent tying frenzy (its getting cold here now and the fire is going) has led me to the inevitable parachute flies, Klinkammers, Adams, and so on.

I wonder what people are using for posts? I find deer hair too hard to get consistent results with, and cannot find any white calf body hair. (Even though I own a beef farm here!) Calf tail is too coarse and hard to stack, rabbit is too soft. Goat hair won’t stack either.

I do have some great carpet yarn that works really well, although it is a dull brown color and not too good where I want a white or orange post.

What brilliant ideas are out there among my clever mates in FAOL land?

antron

zlon

darlon

turkey t base feather

calftail (its real easy to stack, ya just gotta comb it first)

calf body hair

snowshoe rabbit foot hair

poly yarn

i’m sure theres many more

Hi Gringo,

I often use moose body hair for a tail then use the waste ends to supplement the wing material to help provide a better parachute platform. This technique is especially helpful when using CDC (or other soft matrial) for the wings. Take care & …

Tight Lines - Al Beatty
www.btsflyfishing.com

I usually use poly pro yarn. It floats and comes in many colors. John

Depending on the size of the fly I use the following…

really small, 18-24…
Antron yarn or Hi-Vis. It’s just easier to handle a long tag and cut it to size.

medium, 14-18…
Turkey flats, calf body. The calf body is a little more durable, worth finding some, but the quality varies a lot from piece to piece. It’s one material that I really like to buy in person.

big, 10-14…
Calf tail is my favorite. If you spray the calf tail with ‘Static-Guard’ or some other anti static laundry spray the material will stack much better. Nothing gives that big bushy profile quite like the crinkly hair of a calf tail.

In general I prefer the calf hair or calf tail, these materials are very durable and seem to float longer than anything else, the downside is that they are very bulky so better suited to medium or large flies.

Turkey flats or T-base feathers are great to work with. They come in a lot of colors including some very nice speckled ones. They are easy to handle and aren’t as bulky as the calf tail. Eventually it will absorb water and stop floating more quickly than calf tail or calf body hair.

Synthetic yarn can be easily sized for any size fly. It ties in with the least bulk of all. It has the advantage that you can tie in a long tag for easy handling then trim to size, making it ideal for really small stuff. It’s downside is that it just doesn’t float as long as the natural materials. I’m not sure why, perhaps it doesn’t absorb floatant. In any case it seems I am needing to re-treat the synthetic yarns more often.

:smiley: Gringo, I would suggest that you check out Charlie Craven’s video “two minute parachutes” at flyfisherman on line. It is great, Charlie uses synthetic materials such as antron, Darlon, high-viz etc. I find them much easier to handle and less bulky than calf hair using Charlies technique.

Gringo,

I really like Poly Yarn for parachute posts. I can double it up for really big flies and split it for tiny flies. No stacking of hair, just a nice trim job once the fly is tied. It also comes in a lot of colors so I can tie posts that I can actually see.

REE

I tie my nylon yarn posts with half the thickness and make a wrap around the hook shank up… Essentially double the yarn under the shank. It creates a slightly fatter, more natural thorax. A very efficient tier I know uses a short piece of hackle stem inside his other materials, especially when using mallard flank for the post.

I use poly yarn as well, but I have used foam in the past and it works just fine.
Jeff

I favor turkey t-base feathers. It’s very light, comes in lots of different colors (some that are in my desk right now are white, wood duck tan, flo. orange and flo. pink). Believe it or not, the pink ones are far easier to see at dusk and dawn than the florescent orange ones. Another reason I prefer them is that they produce a very uniform wing post.

Give them a try - you’ll like them. They’re available from a number of sponsors of this board.

-Darryl

Gentlemen - thanks you all so much for your ideas. I know the solution is out there, and it may be poly yarn!

I have in my little kit some Neer hair, Z lon and Hi Vis but am not satisfied with any of these as post material. I am finding that after tying there are always a constant stream of little pulled strands requiring trimming, sometimes pulled out by other hooks while in the box. I wonder if Poly yarn is any better?

I have tried all the other methods too, except the calf body hair. We cannot import calf products into Australia so it is about the only thing I have trouble getting, despite the millions of the little suckers wandering our country, or the two hundred I am looking at out the window right now. (I wonder where I could find some… )

My best results have been with that carpet fibre stuff I mentioned, or by sticking with the traditional deer hair stuff. Neither of these gives me visible colors for fast water though, and the other methods are more on the “fiddly” side for my liking.

Good evening Mr Gringo.
What part of Australia are you living in ?
Because in the north, in the State of Queensland its beautiful, now at 8.55pm as I write this I am still without shoes on and am in shorts and a tee shite.
It is now a soft beautful 19degrees C.
Your really must move away from the South Pole and enjoy life more ;).

Posts,
there is only one way in my thoughts and that is Antron yarn.
which, of course takes a waterproof marker pen nicely, if you wish to change colour from almost lumo white.

ok, we sell it and I will steal a wee little bit…only a wee bit, thats all and forward the sample to you.

Kind regards,
Your ever caring Uncle
UB

Dear Uncle Bazza

You know where I live… I too am in T shirt, but only because I am in front of a roaring fire by my tying desk. As for moving, I need to stay close to Mr. Trout. It is cold and wet, yes, wet at last, but not wet enough. Thinking of “cold,” I am planning my next trip to Tasmania, I want to backpack (ugh!) into Lake Ada area, but first a trip to Penstock… wanna join me?

The seals fur is going great thanks - I don’t know why I ever tried to use anything else.

Now do you sell calf body hair?

Your loving nephew.

I use Turkey flats or T-base feathers, either one works well for me.

Try the calfs hair again, but this time comb out both ends THROUGHLY. Then stack. Place the hair tips toward the barb end of the hook. Cut post to size. This technique gives a great tapered abdomen.

I also use the aforementioned material in previous posts.

Gringo,

I know it sounds like sacriledge, but I use the poly yarn for most of my ‘parachute’ flies, as well as wings on almost all of the dry flies I tie (don’t use any wings at all on conventional dry flies size 16 and smaller-no need), regardless of style.

Those little ‘strands’ as you put it, are there on this as well. I just don’t think they need to be trimmed. Actually, the ‘messier’ the better. I’ve been purposely storing these flies upside down under a bit of pressure to get the parachute ‘wing’ (it’s just there so we can see the fly) to look more like a mushroom and less like something sticking straight up. I can see that better. The trout certainly don’t care.

Buddy

one of the best materials you can use is mcfly foam, it comes in a ton of colors and you can make it as big or as small as you want and when treated floats forever

Good evening All.
The loving nephew Gringo, (won’t go fishing with him after dark !..loving ?)

Suggested on another thread,
Something about a idea or way of doing something…hey, this might get a bit deep with him and all that boy loving stuff… its a real worry.

Well,
Something I do BUT it seems most others do not.

When tying a hackle around a post,
I turn the hook on its side in the vise,

no Nephew Gringo, its not a vice, how many times must I tell you ?

This turning action, the hook/fly body around 90 degrees to the side allows me to see the hackle clearly in its position on the post and then as a bonus the tying off of the hackle is super easy.

This extremely simple move makes Parachute type flies super easy to tie !

I also tie a few size 20’s… with a post (Rick ;)…
And it makes a real difference how the end product finishes.

Trust I have helped and not confused ?
Kind regards,
UB
PS, dear nephew, your early Christmas present has been sent, it is only a sample.

Hmmmmm now I have to figure a jig to hold my vise, (it is also a vice by the way) on its side.

Great Idea

Eric

I use both Antron and poly for my posts but mostly Antron because I like the shiny effect that it has in the light. I agree completely about natural hair; its a pain the buttock to work with, why bother? 8T :slight_smile: