Pattern Database

Al Caucci and Bob Nastasi's Comparadun concept changed dry-fly design. The fanned deer hair wing sits flush in the film like a natural, and the split tail provides perfect balance without hackle.

Fran Betters's 1949 rough-water dun — the fly the Comparadun was refined from. A coarse deer-hair wing fanned upright over a buggy cream body, no hackle at all: it rides the Ausable's heavy pocket water flush and visible where delicate flies drown, and big-river browns have approved for seventy years.

Craig Mathews and John Juracek's Sparkle Dun pairs the Comparadun's fanned deer hair wing with a Z-Lon trailing shuck suggesting an emerging nymph. This combination triggers strikes during the most selective BWO hatches.

The Sparkle Dun scaled up for the Western Green Drake — the big early-summer mayfly that brings every large fish in the river to the surface. The fanned deer-hair wing and trailing shuck read as a drake struggling free, which is exactly the version the fish prefer to eat.

The Sparkle Dun tied to match the sulphur hatch. The trailing shuck and upright deer hair wing perfectly suggest a sulphur in the final stages of emergence — exactly what selective evening-rise fish demand.