Has anyone on the board tied on a hook called an umbrella hook? A guy at the flyshow gave me a couple of samples, and I tied some para BWO’s up, but haven’t had a chance to fish them yet.
The hook is shaped like a number 3 with a flat top, so the shank sits in the water like a anchor and keel. I threw my fly in a glass of water along with a regular parachute and it seemed to ride in the water more properly.
Anyone else have a chance to fish with them to determine if hook up is as good to better than a regular shaped hook?
It has two advantages. First, the light pattern of umbrella dun is very close to that of a real mayfly or caddisfly, so it is ideal for the most finicky of trout. It works for both spring creeks and choppy waters in mountain streams. Frank uses it to catch iwana and yamame in Japan’s mountain streams.
Second, it is a very good chasis for an extended body fly because it has wide gape, so the extended body will not decrease hooking.
As for some disadvantages, a friend of mine in France pointed out that when he hooked a really heavy fish, the hook broke. However, he admitted the effectiveness of the hook on the superwary fish in his vodka-clear homeriver of Southern France. Also, umbrella hook was originally designed to catch the finicky fish in Japan’s small mountain streams, not the biggest fish. Another disadvantage is that it may not be readily available in the United States.
As is always true for many fly tying materials, this kind of specialty hook is not a must. You can use any wide-gaped scud hook to produce similar results, but umbrella hook may help you accommodate certain fly design features better than other regular hooks as you can see in Frank’s website. So, umbrella dun may give you a new fun experience though it is not indispensable.
I hope this will be of some help to you.
[This message has been edited by adso4 (edited 24 September 2005).]
Hans, I can see where a regular scud hook might need to be bent a bit to accomodate these patterns. Personally, I’d be interested in testing some of the recommended hooks. They appear to be very capable.
I like to keep things simple in my tying. These hooks have so many sharp bends in their wire, I have a hard time convincing myself they van be structurally sound. A lot or room to either flex or break. I am also a bit sceptical on hook gape.
Please note these are comments from a person who has not tried the actual hooks, so worth less than the screen you read the characters on
I had a link to a fly called the 90 degree parachute that unfortunately doesn’t work any longer.
In essence the fly was a tied on a regular or short shank dry fly hook with a wing made of tulle, which is a mesh-like cloth used for wedding veils and favors. The body was attached 90 degrees to the hook shank and was made of poly yarn with a melted end and had fibbettes inserted for tails. It was finally hackled below the body. The end result is a fly the looks almost exactly like the Umbrella Fly except the body wasn’t as fancy.
I actually tied a few and caught a few fish on them too.
As I said above, I do not think that you must have umbrella hook to produce similar results. Regular scud hook will do the same thing. I agree with Hans at this point.
Also, the design in which the hook hangs in the surface film vertically is not new at all. Al Beatty’s Para-Glen, Christian Billard’s Area 51 fly series, and Gary LaFontaine’s Occasion have the same floating position although the first two are extended body flies, but the last is not.
My earlier lengthy reply was to give you some information on this unfamiliar hook. You have the right to disagree with the originator or not to use umbrella hook. However, please, also respect that the originator of umbrella hook wants to play “his style” of fly tying and fishing. Whether the hook does not look structurally sound to you or is easily substitutable to get the same effects, the originator wants to do his own way of trout.
[This message has been edited by adso4 (edited 25 September 2005).]
Good discussion! Well I was able to sneak out to 11 Mile Canyon on the S. Platte after posting and was able to test them out.
I thought they worked great. The hook didn’t seem to spook the rainbows at all; I initailly thought that it might, as mentioned above, becuase the trout in 11 Mile are getting more and more educated with (in my opinion) is a huge increase amount of pressure over the past 5 years.
Strength didn’t seem to be an issue, either. I landed a couple of nice 18" jumpers on 6x tippet and the hook was not bent from original position at all.
Regarding availability in the U.S.: The name of the guy I got the samples from is Aaron Dimig. I don’t know if he is selling direct to consumers (probably just to retail shops), but his e-mail address is a_dimig@yahoo.com. Nice guy.
My test results: Good strong hook that works as well as any other I’ve tried.
Now for commentary: I’m kind of surprised about some of the comments above. I personally get a little bored tying the same stuff and I’m always looking to try something new. This hook definitely sparked my thought process in the way I design a fly; I actually had to picture in my mind the process to use and that led me to thinking about different applications other than duns and parachutes. I think an still water emerger with the body wrapped down the hook shank and a plume up on the top of the flat part would be killer. A true half-in, half-out emerger for lakes.
Any way you look at it, it’s something new and different. Indespensible? It won’t replace every hook in my arsenal, but then again, we could all probably catch fish on a broomstick and a little kite string, too.
I am all for experimenting, with the aim to improve over what is already there. I applaud anyone who walks untrodden paths, and these hooks fit the bill.
I guess my position is that I failed (and fail) to understand which problem is tackled here in an attempt to improve.
That said, I am pleased to hear your on-stream testing has worked out to your satisfaction
Interesting concept. The finished fly is very similar to the “Rotated Parachute” that I tied for Han’s page. - [url=http://www.danica.com/flytier/jcramer/rotated_parachute.htm:dfc33]http://www.danica.com/flytier/jcramer/rotated_parachute.htm[/url:dfc33]
In my case I used the Partridge parachute hook (HE#1). The parachute post (a part of this hook) was given a slight upward bend to represent the curve of the mayfly body and then cut to desired length. With the steel post as the foundation for the extended body this is a very easy fly to tie.
As I said on Han’s page, another interesting fly that I have not had the time to fish.
Boy is it hard to come up with something new in the fly tying world!
[This message has been edited by Jim Cramer (edited 25 September 2005).]
Mr. Shibata?s ?Umbrella Flies? do look more natural with the upturned bodies and the way they float more on the surface than in the surface. However, Alexander Wanless, Scottish angler and writer in the early 1900?s, was doing this with his detached hook flies tied on standard shank hooks. He developed this style of fly due to his concern for the hook protruding from the end of the body. He determined that??The hook should be suspended from the ?waist? of the fly-that is, at the junction of the thorax and abdomen.? These flies were available and on the market in the 1930?s in Scotland under the name ?Milward-Wanless? flies, the name Milward representing the makers who supplied the retail trade. He made these ?detached-hook? flies for loch and sea trout with treble and single hooks, salmon flies with treble, double and single hooks, and for trout with single hooks. The trout flies were hackled dries, spent flies, sedges, loch and river wet flies, spider flies and hackle-point winged dry flies. Wanless made these flies by tying the bodies on gut, complete with tails, then attaching them to the hook. Realistic looking mayfly bodies are commercially available through Spirit River, called ?Lipstick Mayfly Bodies?. The catalog number for some that I have in ?Rust? color is LSBS-086. These bodies come segmented and with tails, and look very real. Surely, some of the retail sponsors of this site have access to these.
Bob
It looks like a standard jig hook that’s been bent down along the shank. Without the lead head, these hooks have a tendancy to open up. Its one of the reasons I stopped using them for bead pin jigs.
Of course this is with size 8, 3x tippets and 10+lb steelhead. For smaller trout, and limited by 6x tippets, I don’t think the hook should be a issue.
