The Sparkle Parachute

The Sparkle Parachute

Arizona does not have very large prolific hatches of insects, but many times as I am standing knee deep in the water, a small hatch of some small fly fills the air around me. This particular pattern is a simple variation of a parachute tied on a curved hook and I prefer tying this fly on smaller hooks ranging from #16-#20. The materials are minimal: Gray thread, gray hackle, and Sulky Holoshimmer “thread” (it is actually more of an extremely thin ribbon). The fly is very similar to an Adams, but the Sparkle parachute seems to be more productive, especially in the mid mornings or early evenings when those small gray/white bugs are dancing through the air.

Sulky Holoshimmer

Basic instructions: Thin thread base. Tie in a couple strands of holoshimmer thread for tail. I tie a thread body and skip the dubbing as I believe it becomes too bulky. Tie in the post and wrap the hackle. Whip finish and head cement. Pretty easy and extremely productive. If you have need for more specific instructions, shoot me a question in the comments below.

Note: I found the Sulky Holoshimmer thread at Joanne Fabrics in multiple different colors. The nice thing about this material is that it is extremely durable and it comes on a spool of 250 yards. I have a hard time believing that I’ll be running through that anytime soon. I have it in green, gold, red, and the silver pictured above and it makes extremely nice ribbing on some of my nymphs.

Part 2
Notice the Sparkle in the corner of his mouth