The parachute fly has its strengths and weaknesses. The advantages, in my opinion, are that the hackle placed over the chest, that allow the fish to see perfectly the body of fly and that, the body of fly, lying on the surface, very well imitates the posture of dun. The defect, always in my opinion, is that the rooster hackle is wound around the wings that do not provide a robust basis for tying.
For years I tried to improve on the tying of parachute, and although I got some decent results, I must admit that I began to fear of not being able to reach my goal until the day I saw Alba, the daughter of my nephew Lorenzo, play with the plastic cards with making up a sort of colored mat on which they can sit down and play small children.
I observed a card and I realized that it was composed of a synthetic material similar to foam, but more compact.
From long time I was hoping to find a similar material therefore I went immediately into a toy store where I bought the game.
Although if I used the foam for years, I confess that it was the discovery of a that new material to stimulate my creativity.
Surely it was the compactness of the material to inspire me with which I got tying process that until then I had not imagined I could get using the common foam.
Because the game tiles are one centimeter high, serving me with a ruler and a scalpel, I cut the strips of each thickness, depending on the use that I had to make.
Using a strip of that material solved the problem of providing to the parachute tying a solid base for the winding of the hackle and I created what I call "my parachute."
I proposed this tying process with the article "Parachute: perfection", published in n° 6/98 of the Italian magazine "Fly Line".
The use of this imitation became common among fly anglers Italian, so that today, the younger ones, probably do not know that I'm your creator.
