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The late Russ Mowry, my mentor, loved to tie dry flies and, while he tied the Catskill style, his specialty was the spent wing parachute. He tied professionally and tied so many of these flies he had a bunsen burner on his tying desk hooked up to his natural gas line to facilitate burning the wings.

He was a firm believer that, if trout were feeding on surface mayflies, spent wing parachutes were more productive than any other dry fly. My own experience bears this out and, accordingly, practically all the dry flies I tie are spent wing parachutes.

In his opinion, and mine, hen necks are the best source of feathers for producing the spent wings. The stems are thinner, easier to handle and position, and the feather itself has heavy webbing which enhances the look and the silhouette when observed from the fishes viewpoint.

 Tying Instructions

Step 1

Prepare the post as you would for any parachute fly using the material of your choice.

Step 2

Burn the wings using brass wing burners, available from many sources at a nominal price. 

Step 3

Prepare a pair of wings approximately equal in length to the fly body. Leave a long stem to facilitate holding and positioning the wing when tying it in.

Step 4

Tie in the two wings so they are extending forward and out of your way. The base of the wing should be aligned at the base of the post and the wings should be dull side up so they curve slightly upward. It is important that the wings be equal in length else the fly will spin when cast and snarl up the tippet. The long stem mentioned in 3 above helps as you can pull it after making 2 or 3 thread wraps to even up the wing tips.

Step 5

Tie in the tail. Dub the body. Tie in the hackle feather. One wing at a time, pull the wings back perpendicular and parallel to the shank and make a couple wraps of thread to hold them in position. If you wish, you may tie the wings back into position prior to tying in the hackle feather.

Step 6

At this point, I like to take a very small amount of dubbing and do a figure eight wrap over and around the post and thread wraps used to position the wings. See the picture below. No thread wraps are visible.

Step 7

Wrap the hackle in the manner you prefer but make one wrap under the wings. Finish the fly by dubbing the thorax and head portion and finish on or off the post as you prefer.

Step 8

When finished, the wings should be almost invisible from the side and look good from the fishes view 

Fred Bridge ©2007

About the Author...Fred Bridge, who uses the handle Fred of York, now resides in York, PA, but learned his fly fishing and fly tying from his mentor and brother-in-law Russ Mowry. Fred has been fly tying and fly fishing for more than 55 years and did some professional tying. He is retired and spends much time fly fishing, fly tying, woodworking, and volunteering his time as a Lieutenant in the Manchester Township Fire Police.