Fly tying can be a quite traditional pursuit, and there are plenty of tiers who love nothing more than using natural materials to create time-honored patterns, And then there’s Bob Reece. We’ve featured a bunch of his patterns, and most offer a modern twist on an old idea. But few have broken with tradition as much as his latest pattern, the Purple Parachute Adams. Picture a Purple Haze, but tied with all synthetic materials and featuring a posting method you may never have seen before.
In this video, Bob walks you through the tying process, which seems fairly elaborate, involving three different hooks and plenty of glue. But once you see how it’s done, you should be able to bang these out pretty quickly using an assembly-line approach. The resulting fly is plenty buggy and should float well even in rough water. Your Catskill-aficionado friends may turn up their noses at the fly, but it will certainly catch fish.
You can learn more by visiting his brand-spanking new website, Thin Air Angler.
Purple Foam Parachute Adams
Hook #1: Standard streamer hook, hook point removed.
Thread #1: Black, 8/0 or 70-denier.
Body: Oil Slick Loco Foam, colored with a purple Sharpie. Cut to a
thin triangle, twice the length of the shank of hook #2.
Tails: Black Krystal Flash.
Adhesive #1: Zap-A-Gap.
Hook #2: Black Tiemco 2499, sizes 12-16.
Thread #2: Black, 8/0 or 70-denier.
Wing post: White Gator Hair.
Adhesive #2: Zap-A-Gap.
Hackle: Grizzly, slightly oversize.
Adhesive #3: Zap-A-Gap.
Clear Coat: Deer Creek Diamond Fine Flex.
Tools: Bobbin threader, hackle pliers.