Parachute Hopper
Cheech - August, 2017
One of my first times ever fishing larger terrestrials for hungry trout involved small pocket water, a 3 weight, and a parachute hopper. Instead of crashing my fly down really hard into the pools, I'd place a cast about where it should go, and the bushy parachute would gently land in it's place only to be violently slashed off of the surface. The parachute hopper became a confidence fly for me that day, and I think it fishes completely differently from a foam fly due to how softly it lands on the water. I remember going home and attempting to tie some, but I quickly realized that the turkey wing, the calf body hair post, and the knotted pheasant tail fibers were pretty hard to pull off correctly. Not only that, but after a fish or two all your hard work would be shredded by a fish. Because of those issues, I took a long break from tying them. Just recently I have started fishing some water that I thought would benefit from a softer landing pattern, so I started tinkering with some new materials. Let's just say that the fish really like this new version too.
This pattern is a variation of the good old classic, and I have made some changes based on material availability and durability. First, the body is tied out of a deer hair dubbing to add more buoyancy to the fly. Second, (and I think most important) the wing and legs are treated with Loon Soft Head, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite adhesives for tying due to it's durability. Third, I changed out the calf body hair for EP Trigger Point Fibers because of how hard it is to get good calf body hair these days, and how awesome the EP stuff is.
Some notes on materials... For the wing, I used a treated grouse feather in the video, and you can use partridge, pheasant, etc etc... The classic uses turkey, so that's what we listed in the recipe. For hackle, we used a Whiting High and Dry grizzly dyed golden straw, but any grizzly or hopperish looking color will work. Also, you can buy pre-knotted legs from us so you say fewer bad words in front of your kids. Hopper Legs
One final thing... You will have best results if you fish this with 2x or 3x tippet, if you fish it with light tippet, you will get it all twisted up.
~ Cheech
- Hook: Hanak H 130 BL Dry Fly Hook - 12
- Thread: Veevus GSP - White - 30 Denier
- Tail: Whiting Coq De Leon Tailing Packs - Medium Pardo
- Body: Beaver Plus Dubbing - Light Brown
- Ribbing: Flashabou - Original - 6905 - Pearl
- Post: Calf Body Hair - White
- Tools Used: Tiemco Hackle Pliers - Standard, Fly Tyer's Z-Ment, Loon Ergo Bodkin,
