Canopy emerger--a different style of bubble emerger adaptable to both mayfly and midge emergence

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Youtube link to a video about developing the design and tying a Canopy emerger: youtu.be/4quvpoIFxH0

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Canopy emergers, as the video shows, are a new style of bubble back emerger designs built onto an American-style pheasant tail nymph or a Zebra midge pupa pattern. Added to these patterns is a tinsel-filled tube that looks like the shiny bubbled-up thorax like seen on a natural floating emerger.  Application of the canopy wing design is not restricted to these two nymphs but can be added to many other mayfly and midge patterns to make them into bubble emergers. As such the Canopy Emerger represents a pattern style, adaptable to your favorite nymph pattern, that can be also adjusted in size, degree of wing deployment and color to match mayflies and midges at various degrees of emergence. 

Images and observations presented in the video support a theory that excessive or catastrophic loss of gases from the loosening and bulging shuck formed during the subadult’s development and emergence can, at any stage trap the subadult in its own shuck—for example, the commonly seen split-case nymph.  Therefore, emergers should be designed for a wide range of stages from a darkened wing-case on through to a failed emerger stage. 

 

First image: Pheasant Tail Canopy Emerger. The hook shank on this fly is about 5mm long. Second image: Zebra Midge Pupa Canopy Emerger. The hook shank on this fly is about 4mm long.

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Mayfly Recipe: Canopy Emerger shown above is built on top of an American pheasant-tail nymph chassis.

Hook: Light canopy emerger variant for shallow subsurface drifts: Tiemco 206BL in size 16 to 20. For smaller sizes, I use Daiichi 1140 hooks, size 18 to 24.  For a size 26 midge, I use the Gamakatsu C12BM.  Heavy variant for deeper subsurface drifts: I use Tiemco hooks: 2487 BL size 16 – 20, or 2488 size 16 -22.

Bead: Light variant: 2mm gold-colored plastic bead with hole or no bead at all when fishing over skittish fish.  These light beads are called spacer beads and I found them on Ebay- as small as 2mm in silver and gold color amongst other colors. Heavy variant: 1.5mm to 2 mm gold bead.  

Thread: 30 Denier Semperfli Nano-Silk in copper color for the pheasant tail variant 

Ribbing: Very small 0.1mm diameter silver-colored stainless steel wire or, in order of decreasing bling, gold to amber-colored very small wire. 

Shuck: -- one strand of root-beer color midge-flash about an inch and a half (40mm) long tied in, folded over itself and tied off. Then trim to about ¾ shank length.  I also use about five translucent light-brown guard hairs cut from a patch of muskrat fur tied in at the proper length and the tips untrimmed. 

Abdomen: Two copper brown fibers from the center tail of a ringneck pheasant.  I use feathers sourced in Europe have an exceptionally large usable section of copper-colored feather from Feathercraft.com.

Tubing Wing Case +/- underlying flashback:  Use small diameter clear pliable plastic tubing like that marketed for fly tying. Use a size that will make a wing case in proper proportion to the size of the fly.  As shown in the video, I cut off a 1 ½ (40mm) inch piece of medium (size 16) to small tubing (size 18) pull in small to midge size Mylar silver tinsel to make what I call a “Tinsel Tube.”  As the hook sizes decrease further, I go to a silver wire pushed into the micro-size tubing as shown in the video.  If a thicker wing case is desired, I tie in a flash tube piece at its middle then fold both ends over the flashback and thorax and lash in behind bead.

Thorax: Before the tubing wing and optional flash back are pulled over the thorax, I dub in a small ball of dubbing to make the thorax. I use Sybai fine flash dubbing in “black” color as my peacock color for an American style pheasant tail. 

Collar:  Optional—but often used because it can make a crossover fly that seems to suggest caddis emergers as well as returning egg-layers that become drowned adults. White or Light dun CDC oil puff fibers tied in just behind bead to project out over hook shank about ¾ of the way to the hook bend

Whip finish. 

Variations:  See video for images of canopy emerger variants.  Here is one not mentioned there that is useful pre-hatch time when the fish may key in on nymphs with dark wing case:

1. Ready Baetis variant-- a Baetis nymph nearing hatch time-- imitate a pre-hatch dark wing pads by using dyed black or dark brown micro-tubing as a wing case pulled in a low arc over the thorax peacock dubbing.

 
2. V-wing Canopy emerger built on Zebra midge pupa chassis 

Hook:  Tiers choice. I use Tiemco 206bl, size 16-20,  Tiemco 2488 size 18 – 22.  or Daiichi 1140 hooks, size 18 to 24.  For size 26, the Gamakatsu C12BM.  
Bead: 1.5mm gold, silver or black or none-- to match angler preference, local species, whether you want a shallow or deep drifting fly, and how skittish the fish are.
Thread: Black 20D Nanosilk.
Body: Black thread 
Ribbing:  Gold, silver or black or none to match local species and how skittish the fish are.
Trailing shuck: Midge flash, Root beer color-- or none (=drowned fully emerged adult).  Trimmed to about equal to shank length or so. 
Wing: (1) Clear micro-tubing with silver or white wire inserted.  Tie in the wire wing in the middle of the tubing behind bead or hook eye and bend to pose it back low over hook shank; Trim to about hook shank length: Wing (2) Loop of same wire-in-tubing with cut ends tied in flat behind bead or hook eye and covered with dubbing and bend it to pose it low over the back of the hook shank. Length of loop-- extend to near hook bend.
Thorax: touch dubbing using Sybai fine flash in black or dyed black beaver fur, cut off hide, stripped of guard hairs. Spin the thread to tighten up dubbing into a fuzzy noodle. 

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Just to be clear, I apply the term 'emerger' more broadly than most folks.  As I use the term, it includes immediate pre-hatch and hatch stages that the angler can detect on the stream and use to select an appropriate fly pattern-- beginning with the formation of dark wing pads in mayflies that signal that a subadult is forming within the shuck and ending with failed adults that cannot free themselves from the nearly shed shuck (cripples) or drowned adults (stillborns) that did not achieve flight.  As I use it, ' emergers' are the stage of life between nymphs and a successful dun.