A little bit easier to tie than the Carnage Paradrake (although harder to create a tapered body), especially in smaller sizes; body’s durable and it floats as well. Adjust colors to suit your needs.
hook - Dai Riki 125 #14
thread - UTC 140 tan
tail - moose hair
body - 1mm foam
wing post - Congo Hair white
hackle - barred cream
thorax - dubbing tan
Part 1
For a smaller sized fly like this one, I used the thinnest pin I could find to create the body
start thread on pin
clean and stack a few moose body hairs
tie the moose hairs on the pin
poke a hole in foam strip
slide foam onto the pin up to tie in point
fold foam on either side of pin and adjust thread to start body
Nice, Scott. What is the advantage of the extended body on the short shenk hook? Is it the larger hook gap? I love the added floatation of the fly.
Thanks for the SBS,
Bruce
Yep, it’s the gap. Plus, a standard dry fly hook would be a bit more iron than I want in the smaller sizes. Depending on how it lands on the water, I may switch to a DR 135; that’s what I use on the Carnage Drake now and it seems to keep it upright.
One of the most illogical things I see in fly tying is detached body flies tied on the first quarter of the shank of a long shank hook. If you are going to float a large lump of metal at least use the advantage of a stouter wire and wider gape, rather than unused shank length.
I think Scott’s choice of hook is spot on for that fly.
Nicely done! I’ve played around with some Rogue style green drakes. I tried to get a better taper by cutting the foam into an hourglass shape. But the narrow point was too small and would often tear when putting it on the needle.
Have you looked at the Furimsky style drakes? I think Charlie Craven has a tutorial. I tied some like that but used thinner foam and cut it into a taper. They turned out fairly good , but I need to find the right color of foam.
If you are looking for more taper to the body then cut two wedges of foam rather than a strip. Tie in the tail, then the wedges effectively the wrong way so they lie along side the tail. Then fold them back. That’s how I’ve always done these. I’d been tying them years before I saw the single strip method. To get the wedges even I cut a load and pair them up.
Cheers,
A.
I’ve seen Charlie’s tutorial on the Furimsky Drake. Played around with it a bit but was never happy with how mine turned out; then again, I can’t tie like either one of those guys.
Alan,
That’s kind of where I was headed next; even as I was tying this one up I was thinking about how to get more of a taper to the body. Don’t know how important it is to the fish but can’t hurt to try.
