The Klinkhamer

The Klinkhamer was originally designed by Hans Van Klinken to copy the fly emerging from its shuck as it made the change to a flying insect. There are ‘puritans’ among us who refuse to accept this fly as a true dry fly because the fly has not been airborne. To those of us who just enjoy fly fishing it is a dry fly which often doubles up as a support or sight fly with a nymph attached New Zealand style underneath.It is not the easiest of flies to tie but is well worth persevering with.

There are several ways of tying this fly, all based on using a yarn post to achieve a horizontal hackle which looks like a parachute. The hook used is a lightweight buzzer hook. I use Kamasan KB100s sizes 10 and 12.I hope you will find the lesson easy to follow. You can use exactly the same technique to tie parachute dry flies, on which you use a straight hook with tail fibres to keep the tail end up in the water.

Hopefully this satisfies the purists.  I use Kamasan KB400s.  For both of these patterns you will find that the better the quality of the hackle the better it floats. If you prefer to dub the body keep it as sparse as possible, it stops the fly getting waterlogged. Give it a try and let me know how you get on.

Materials
 

• Hook Kamasan B100 ( or similar ) sizes 10, 12 or 14 if you are brave.
• Thread Sparton Micro black (or similar).
• Rib optional fine silver wire.
• Dubbing Hare or Possum body fur.
• Hackle best quality cock hackles you can afford.
• Wing Post Egg yarn or white calf tail.

Dave C. and The Team

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