Sulphur Comparadun - SBS

[Brown duck]

The time has arrived - dry fly season in MI!

Here's one of my favorites to tie - I'm sure the more experienced fly tiers and fishers are familiar with the comparadun, but others may not be, so here goes. I guess this is one of my favorite styles because there is no hackle - hackle can give me fits!

The comparadun is a stlye, not a specific fly, so it can be tied in many different sizes and colors to imitate a number of different bugs. I've never tried larger sizes, but the smaller flies (14 and smaller) float really well.

Materials
Hook - dry fly, 16 or 18 (pictured is a Daiichi 1180, sz 16 for ease of photographing)
Thread - Ultra-thread, 8/0 Yellow
Tail - ginger Z-lon (to imitate a trailing shuck, can also use hackle, moose mane, micro-fibettes, or other tail materials)
Body - sulphur dubbing (use your favorite)
Wing - coastal deer hair, stacked and flared

Step 1:
http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/photopost/data/500/medium/sulphur1.JPG

Step 2: stack the deer hair
http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/photopost/data/500/medium/sulphur2.JPG

Step 3: tie down butt ends (cleaner than seen here if you can!) and flare the hair to form the wing - it can be flared more later
http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/photopost/data/500/medium/sulphur3.JPG

Step 4: tie in the tail, whichever material you may choose
http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/photopost/data/500/medium/sulphur5.JPG

Step 5: start dubbing
http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/photopost/data/500/medium/sulphur6.JPG

Step 5 - dub the body and tie off
http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/photopost/data/500/medium/sulphur7.JPG

Finished fly - front view
http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/photopost/data/500/medium/sulphur8.JPG

The comparadun - simple, yet effective. Enjoy!

[tommytubular]

Thanks for sharing Mr Brown duck... Hackle gives me fits too. The small dry fly hackle is the worst!

Stacking a small bunch of costal deer hair seems like a much better idea to me... and way less expensive then quality dry fly hackle:)

Tie up a dozen or two in varying sizes/colors to match conditions/hatches... good to go! I'm sooooo gonna give it a try... and see what happens:cool:

Do you grease them up to float or let it ride more emerger style.... or both?

Your hair stacker in the photo below (real good photos BTW).... something didn't look right to me. Took me a minute to figure out but I thought... where are the hair tips? Aren't all hair stackers two piece?

Or are you just tapping the tips to the bottom.... pinch and pull it out?

[QUOTE=Brown duck;2689074]
Step 2: stack the deer hair
http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/photopost/data/500/medium/sulphur2.JPG

[Brown duck]

Do you grease them up to float or let it ride more emerger style.... or both?

Your hair stacker in the photo below (real good photos BTW).... something didn't look right to me. Took me a minute to figure out but I thought... where are the hair tips? Aren't all hair stackers two piece?

Or are you just tapping the tips to the bottom.... pinch and pull it out?



Fish it whichever way you please - I usually get lazy and don't grease my flies as much as I probably should. This style tends to float much better in calm water than riffles.

Right on - that's just the bottom piece of a two-piece hair stacker. The tips are at the bottom of this so that they come out alligned. The picture was taken after I put the hair, tips first, into the stacker, knocked it on the desk a couple times to ensure they were alligned, and removed the top (funnel-shaped) piece.

[Shoeman]

Got a few of them in my boxes. A fun tie!

[tommytubular]

The picture was taken after I put the hair, tips first, into the stacker, knocked it on the desk a couple times to ensure they were alligned, and removed the top (funnel-shaped) piece.

I guess that's what confused me. I do the exact same thing until you pull the top off the two piece stacker leaving the hair in the bottom.

I tilt the stacker on it's side and remove the top with the hair still in it. Then place the bottom on the bench. Then pinch, measure and tie on.

Also, if you are a right handed tyer and you want the hair tips pointing forward... remove the top from the stacker with your left hand. This will have the tips going in the right direction to pinch with your right hand, measure up and tie on.

Of course the opposite is true if you want the hair tips to the rear of the fly. Remove the top with your right hand pinch with your left.

If ya do it the other way around... you will have to turn that pinch of stacked hair around and from one hand to the other. It doesn't always work so well. I have some experience here:lol:

I read that tip a couple years ago somewhere and it was in the pro tips article in a recent Fly Tyer magazine.... It works great.

[gunrod]

I can never get the deer hair wings right on the comparadun or my abdomen is too big. Nice bug. I usually do sulphurs parachute (for the reason mentioned above) and do well on them whether there is a good hatch or not.