Fly Tying the Base & Tail of a Parachute Adams Fly

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Jeff Wilkins on behalf of Expert Village. We're going to get started by putting the hook in the vice. First step is to lay a good base of thread. Now let's start right up at the hook eye, come back about one eye width to give enough room to be able to finish the fly off later. I'm going to quickly lay a thread base going all the way back to the rear. Get rid of the tag end. I'm going to continue to wrap thread all the way back to the bend and stopping just short of the bend right over the hook barb. That's what we call the hook shank. And the first material we are actually going to tie on the hook is the tail. We are going to take a spade hackle, this is the wide hackle from the edge of a cape or a neck. They're long and stiff so I'm going to take my thumb and forefinger, strip the fibers out so they stand up, they're perpendicular to the stem. Grab about half to maybe three quarters of an inch worth of fibers. You're going to pull those off, gather them into a bunch, and then I'll measure it. I'm going to measure it to see how long the fibers are. And I'll measure according to the shank length of the hook. This tail should be about from where the thread is positioned to the hook eye. Now I'll measure it with the right hand. I'm going to transfer it over to the left. I'm going to tie the tail. I'm going to use the basic pinch technique. I'm going to pinch, actually pinch, the hook shank here between my fingers while I pinch the material. I'm going to come up with the thread. Pinch the thread as well. Come over and down. I'm going to do that a total of four times. So the tails in place, it hasn't rolled over the hook shank. Then I'll just take the tying thread and give it about two or three more wraps to secure it. The next step, we'll just trim off that excess. Get rid of that and cover it with a few thread wraps."