Parapoly Sedge
In the beginning, it seems that other people had much more success with this pattern than I had myself. The Para Poly Sedge I developed just a few weeks after I made my first Klinkhamer special and this fly had a really bad start. Although, I specifically design this fly for a river which abounds with large sedges, I never got the chance to test it in any objective way. In the years that I visit that particular river there was so much water that the fishing was hardly effective. The wading was difficult -even dangerous- and the best pools were completely flooded. Fish were almost impossible to spot. They were probably the worst conditions in which I ever fished this place. Whatever the circumstances, however, I still attempt some fishing, but on that occasion and not surprisingly, without any success. Every fair fly-fisher must agree that one cannot condemn a river as poor just because one's first experiment of it is under poor conditions. I was right because a few years later, I did very well on that river in much better weather conditions.
So the Para Poly Sedge (P.P.S.) stayed in my fly-box for quite a long time without getting used very much. During trips and in conversations with other anglers I gave away quite a few flies and a few of these were PPSs. Two years after I first tied it, my attention was drawn back to the pattern in this way. It happened after I had received an enthusiastic letter from a fanatical German fly fisherman. I had given him one or two PPSs to try on Scandinavian waters. He and his friends had done extremely well on the fly indeed, he had enjoyed his most successful trip to Norway and Sweden, thanks largely to this pattern. The PPS had become his favourite fly by far and to-day he kept a box full of it in many different colours.
The same year, another letter reached me reporting favourable words on the pattern, this time from the U.K.
After that second letter, I decided to give the fly closer attention and I try it out intensively in various parts of Europe. This time my own results were much better. Most spectacular of all, I did particularly well on grilse and sea trout in small Norway rivers. I even got some good success for seatrout during coastal fishing in estuaries at the Norwegian coast!
The fly must be fished in the water-film, with the polypropylene yarn wing above the surface. The fly float very well and can be fished in drag-free drifts and with upstream retrieving techniques. The parachute hackle in front give some special attraction to this fly and leave a nice wake if the right retrieving speed will be used. During the years I also found out that some success can be obtain when the fly is fishing just under the surface during an upstream retrieve. Then I usual start with a down-stream drift and fish the fly back just under the surface. A deadly methode for many fish spieces.
Tying sequence
- Place hook in the vice and wrap entire shank with tying
thread. Secure Poly-yarn from the middle to the hook eye, leaving about
three centimetre outside the hook. Tie in a good quality hackle, in the same
direction as the wing (i.e., with the feather extending forwards), and take
the thread back to the hook bend.
- Dub the thread with with FlyRite poly dubbing of whatever chosen colour.
- Wind a nicely tapered body up the tie point of the poly yarn and hackle.
- Now turn the hook in the vice, so that the shank is vertical, with the bend
uppermost. Grasping the tuft of poly yarn, wind several turns of thread
around the base of the poly yarn, creating a rigid wingbase on which to wind
the hackle.
- Now wind the hackle around the base of the poly yarn, taking each successive
turn closer to the hook shank (i.e., to the left for a right handed tier).
This ensures a compact well compressed hackle.
- Pulling the hackle tip to the left, secure it with a few turns of spiderweb
(around the base of the wing), tight in between the wind hackle and body,
using your whip finiser. Trim away the waste hackle tip, but do NOT cut your
thread.
- Return the hook to the normal position in the vice. Now, carefully groom all
the hackle fibres forwards, then pul the poly yarn wing backwards. Tie down
the wing just behind the hackle, as shown, and tie off using a whip
finisher. Apply some lacquer to both these last windings/whipfinish and to
the little "wing case" you have created. Finally, trim the poly yarn wing to
a lengt level with the bend of the hook.