Klinkhåmer Special

Emerger imitating caddis and mayflies, for trout and grayling. Intermediate. Hans van Klinken, 1984.

A slim tan abdomen round the curve of the hook, a peacock herl thorax, a white post and a long parachute hackle.

Materials

Steps

  1. Attach thread Attach the thread at 80% of the way along the shank with a few turns and trim the tag end. Spiral the thread over the whole shank and well round the bend first.
  2. Wrap thread Wrap the thread to 75% of the way along the shank in touching turns.
  3. Tie in: poly yarn Tie in the poly yarn upright, the gape tall, with turns in front to stand it up. Angle-cut so the underbody stays slim; stand it up with posting turns.
  4. Tie in: blue dun cock hackle Tie in the blue dun cock hackle with a few firm thread turns. Stem posted up the yarn.
  5. Wrap thread Wrap the thread to the start of the bend in touching turns.
  6. Dub: light tan poly dubbing Twist a thin noodle of light tan poly dubbing onto the thread and wrap it forward to 72% of the way along the shank. Slim and tapered, from as far round the bend as possible to the post.
  7. Tie in: peacock herl Tie in 3 strands of peacock herl with a few firm thread turns. Three herls by their tips, right behind the post.
  8. Wrap thread Wrap the thread to 92% of the way along the shank in touching turns.
  9. Wind: peacock herl Wind the peacock herl forward to 90% of the way along the shank in 4 turns. A robust thorax, in front of and round the base of the post.
  10. Tie off: peacock herl Tie off the peacock herl with a few thread turns and trim the excess.
  11. Wind: blue dun cock hackle Wind the blue dun cock hackle round the base of the poly yarn in 6 turns, each one under the last. From the top of the post downwards; it is hard to over-hackle.
  12. Tie off: blue dun cock hackle Tie off the blue dun cock hackle with a few thread turns and trim the excess.
  13. Whip finish Form a small head, whip finish with 5 turns and cut the thread.

History

Hans van Klinken, a Dutch army instructor, first fished it on 27 June 1984 on the Glomma in Norway. He called it the LT Caddis, one fly of an LT series he developed in Scandinavia; Hans de Groot and Ton Lindhout, his colleagues on a magazine's editorial staff, renamed it the Klinkhåmer Special. It grew from Kenneth Boström's Rackelhanen: van Klinken's copies sometimes landed wing-flat, so he wound a hackle round the wing, as he had seen in a book by Eric Leiser, and a few months later added the herl thorax. He points out that others had the same idea: Tomas Olsen in Sweden a year earlier, Roy Richardson in the United States in 1986, and Mike Monroe, whose Paratilt was published in 1979.

Fishing it

The abdomen hangs below the surface like a hatching insect while the parachute holds the fly up; van Klinken says it suggests all kinds of emerging mayflies and caddis. He designed it for grayling, which tend to push high-floating flies aside as they take, and finds it hooks them well. It stays upright in riffles and strong currents, and the white post shows the takes of fish that sip it down without a ring. Treat the post and hackle with floatant but not the body, which has to break through the film.

Sources