Comparadun Mayfly

This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Comparadun mayfly.

I first tied a Comparadun mayfly in the early 1990’s. The fly was a pattern I found in Randall Kaufmann’s book Tying Dry Flies. Kaufmann presented the Comparadun along with a Sparkle Dun.

Al Caucci developed the Comparadun mayfly in the early 1960’s as a variant to the classic Haystack fly pattern. Caucci joined with Bob Nastasi and introduced the fly in 1972 in their first book Comparahatch.

I tried tying Comparaduns in the 90’s, but had difficulty with having the wings stay upright. I used the thread damn technique described in the book, but they always ended up tilted forward over the wing.

The fly still caught fish. In fact, I used it to imitate March Brown mayflies and did quite well.

Many years later, I stopped in West Yellowstone, MT and purchased Zelon for the tail and have been tying Sparkle Duns since then. I like the profile of the mayfly stuck in it’s shuck as easier prey for trout.

I watched Craig Mathews tie with their “sparkle dun” deer hair in a Youtube video and was intrigued by the technique he used to keep the deer hair upright. I’ve described the importance of the type of deer hair needed to tie these flies and the technique I use in my Sparkle Dun fly pattern sheet.

Enjoy…go fish!