Parachute Floating Nymph      

Hook: Tiemco TMC 100 # 16 - 18

Thread: Dark brown 8/0 

Tail: Brown Hackle Fibres

Body: Brown Antron

Ball: Dubbing tied in ball on top of fly

Hackle : Brown Cock

Thorax: Brown Antron

1/ Tie in your thread behind the hook eye and wind back towards the rear of the hook laying a nice even base. Wind to a point just above the hook barb as shown in the photo.
2/ Get a small bunch of fibres from a hackle feather and cut them off. Even them out by stacking them. Gently hold the butt or think ends and loosely let the fibre tips fall through your grasp until they touch the bench top, aligning them in the process. Tie them in as shown so that the tail is equal in length to the hook shank. Trim the excess.
3/ Take a small pinch of dubbing from the packet. This fly can be tied in a variety of colours and shades thereof to match your local bugs but in this case we are using a nice brown which is the standard. Apply a small amount of dubbing to the thread and keep it roughly the same length/thickness along its entire length.
4/ Wind your rope of dubbed thread forward to a point approximately one third of the hank shank's length behind the hook eye. This is where we will tie in the wing and hackle as in most parachute ties. When you have done this remove any excess dubbing and give a couple of wraps around the hook shank to tie off and secure.
5/ Next up take a pinch of dubbing and instead of applying it to the thread in a nice even rope try and make a ball as shown. Roll the dubbing between thumb and forefingers gently until you get the desired look. This will take a few minutes to get to learn or get the feel of but is quite easy with the coarser dubbings.
6/ Using the thumb and forefingers of the left hand hold this ball on top of the hook shank and get the position right. When it is where you want it add a couple of turns in front of the ball around the hook shank in preparation for the next step.
7/ Continuing to pinch this ball securely in place on top of the fly as shown tie it off as we do any parachute tie. For more info click here. Once this is secure add a couple of turns around the hook shank for strength and to secure. You can clearly see the horizontal wraps of thread here in this photo. This now firmly holds the ball in place and gives a solid base to tie the hackle around.
8/ Tie in a hackle. In this case I have tied it on the far side of the wing, shiny side facing us and will wrap counter-clockwise. Secure the hackle with several wraps of thread winding towards the eye. Then trim the excess hackle stem and move on.
9/ Pinch off some more dubbing and apply it to the thread as shown. This will be used to complete the body of the fly, the thorax. Use only a small amount of dubbing if you are new to this. Those of you familiar with tying will pretty much grab the correct amount through experience but it is always less than you think when you are beginning.
10/ Wind this dubbed rope back towards the ball to complete the body as shown. Wind a little towards the hook eye, trying to get slightly more bulk as you reach the ball. Once complete remove any excess dubbing and leave the thread hanging ready to tie off the hackle in the next step.
11/ Wind the hackle counter clockwise around the ball of dubbing. We would suggest only a couple of turns of hackle, a maximum of three with each successive turn beneath the previous one. Tie off as we have learnt in previous fly patterns. For more info click here. Trim the excess hackle when secure, pull the thread down along the top of the thorax to the eye and half hitch and trim to finish.
12/ The finished fly as seen from above. It sits low in the water and is very effective. This photo should give you some idea of proportions.

The Pattern

I cannot recall where I first saw this pattern but I can remember that it was Gary Borger who designed and popularised it. It is a fairly good representation of a hatching mayfly dun and can be taken for an emerger or cripple or even a hatched dun. It is, as a result extremely effective.

On the Goulburn we are very fortunate to have large hatches of smaller mayflies, especially the smaller rust coloured ones that are so prolific at the moment (February 2002 with low water). These insects are emerging in their thousands every evening and the rise is solid for the better part of an hour in places. A Rusty Tailrace Dun fished in conjunction with this emerger pattern works very well indeed. Fish the emerger as the point fly.

This pattern is especially effective when fish are bulging just beneath the surface, that is when their backs break the surface during a rise but not their noses. When this is occurring tying on one of these flies in a size 16 is very effective on our local rivers. Fish the fly dead drift to working fish on a short line and fine tippet. To do this you must get reasonably close to the feeding trout but this is par for the course as accuracy and subtlety are key requirements when fishing these hatch situations. This is not a fly for general blind fishing.

While this fly is effective it is not the be all and end all of emerger fishing. You should always have some klinkhammers and unweighted pheasant tail nymphs on hand when venturing onto local waters. Working out what stage the fish are most actively targeting will pay off and a selection of other emerger possibilities should be carried at all times. Sometimes fish are taking the emergers a foot or so below the surface on their way up and in this case a small unweighted nymph will work well. Look for swirls on the surface rather than an actual fish. Try to read the riseform and react accordingly.

So tie a few of these up in a couple of shades of brown and even a few smaller olive ones and try them out next time you are out fishing the hatch. You may well find that the PFN becomes one of your favourites too.