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Roger Woolley - Compara Hackle

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Comparadun wing made with hackle. This is a video demonstrating a winging technique described by Roger Woolley for shaping a low-riding dry fly using rooster hackle as the wing.  The shaping of the hackle makes a 180 fan shape on the top of the fly.  The shape is reminiscent of the comparadun, just with rooster hackle.

The comparadun pattern was created by Al Caucci and Bob Nastasi in the 1960s and in print in 1972.  It seems, though, this low-riding fly idea pre-dates that by quite a bit.  Roger Woolley's section explaining this technique, implies it was not his idea and one that pre-dates even him.  Roger Woolley was born in 1877 and was at the top of his game in the early 1900s.

I have another video showing how he fashioned wings out of wound rooster hackle as well.

In researching this online I found an article on Global Fly Fisher by Thomas Nick here https://globalflyfisher.com/tie-better/sling-wings. That led me to the TU article and and video by Nick Mango here https://youtu.be/2FchhK9QRfo?si=DM-av5jrviYhKMuz where he shows a technique to deliver the same results shown to him by Mike Romanowski.

I tied a Woolley style and a Romanowski style fly, each, and stuck both in water for 2 days.  I then pulled them out and found both flies to have held their shape.  This tells me both techniques work.  I do not demonstrate the Romanowski technique as you should just watch Nick's video.

I am going to give this a try!

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