Proportions to the fly tyer are the fundamental basis for constructing sound, proportionate and consistently clean flies. There are many rules to abide by that will ensure this will be the end result whenever you sit down to tie a batch of flies. Dry flies have some pretty standard references that will ensure your flies are all consistent.
Two very key proportions come into play when tying dry flies, the length of the tail and the hackle size. Tails are generally equal to the hook length and hackles are 1-1/2 times the length of the hook gap in most instances. This takes into account if you are wrapping your hackles in a traditional manner.
In many instances, especially when fishing to selective trout on flat water, the hackles are often trimmed on the bottom of the fly to let the fly ride flush in the surface film. But in situations where you are fishing faster, broken water a collar or palmer hackled fly will float better. In those cases the general hackle standards are of greater importance.
One very important detail in choosing the correct hackle is figuring into the equation the additional length the hackle will gain when wound on the hook as a result of the body material it will be wound through or on top of. The thicker the body of the fly, the longer your hackle barbs will protrude, and thus can play a role in how your proportions end up. This is a very overlooked byproduct when selecting hackles. That is why if you look at many of the classic Catskill style collared patterns, most of the hackles are wound over a portion of the hook that is only covered by thread.
In the case of many of the palmer hackled patterns like an Elk Hair Caddis for example, the hackle size chosen is typically the same length of the hook gap with the body of the fly taken into consideration, or slightly shorter. How the hackle is tied in can aid in taper or uniformity throughout the body of the fly, which could be several topics in succession. (Maybe this will start a series on hackling, I will wait to hear from some of you on that).
Over time, many tyers have adopted the idea of reverse hackling their patterns for a couple of good reasons. One it improves durability of the pattern as you counter wind wire through the hackle to ensure that it won’t come unwound as easily. But most importantly, it allows the tyer to add the hackle in at the end of the tying sequence near the hook eye. If the hackle were to break at all in the winding process, you can simply attach a new one and start wrapping as opposed to cutting the entirety of the fly off and starting over from scratch.
Hackle preparation is rather elementary and can be done in a number of ways. In todays world, we are spoiled. The consumer can now purchase preselected prime feathers by companies like Whiting that are sized to tie a specific hook. Whiting 100’s are a great resource for the casual tyer and commercial guy/gal as well, I use them every season. But I also sort feathers from full capes and saddles equally as often so it pays to understand the process.
Get yourself a post hackle gauge and with your saddle or cape in hand start sizing some feathers. Once you find the sizes you need, pluck them from the saddle or cape and set them aside. When tying the hackle in by the stem, you want to strip away the barbs below the mounting point. Historically, this was done to remove those fibers that have web to them and are not ideal for dry flies. Today, we are spoiled with many of the genetically engineered hackles available that literally have none. Not all are like this, so it still helps in the long run to take a look at the feathers you will be using and remove the unwanted barbs.
Once you have chosen your feathers and removed the unwanted barbs, you then want to prep the tie in point. You can do so one of two ways. the first being to strip a few barbs from the side of the hackle that will come in contact with the hook when wound, or simply trim the barbs close to the stem. Either method is done to ensure that the first turn of hackle doesn’t splay the barbs out and keeps the hackle perpendicular to the hook.
The only caveat with the former method of stripping barbs from one side is the tyer must pull the barbs from the correct side of the hackle. This decision is made based on the recipe; either shiny side facing forward or rearward when wrapped. The easiest way is the trimmed method which is used most often today.
Now, to further send home the concept, watch the BT Candy tying video as it clearly demonstrates the method. This pattern is a great attractor fly for small stream fishing, and one I never leave home without. It is an homage pattern to Fran Betters, and his Ausable Bomber, tied in the same manner with a few substitutions to create a darker bodied fly.