Comparaduns 02/25/2026 Photo Album

My post of 02/21/2014 provides an excellent story behind the concept of a comparadun and my long road to adopting them as my preferred style of imitating mayfly duns. I highly suggest reading this report.

I have been fishing in Colorado and the west since 1990. That’s thirty-six years, and the comparadun has evolved into my workhorse fly for imitating mayflies. I previously posted a report on the green drake comparadun, so I will not repeat text on that fly here. The main mayfly species that I continue to imitate with comparaduns is the pale morning dun. PMD’s emerge from the middle of June until September in western waters. The freestones provide pale morning dun activity between mid-June and early August, while the tailwaters feature these abundant mayflies during August and September. I have experienced some hatches into October on tailwaters.

Cinnamon and Light Gray

During these hatches I knot a cinnamon or light gray comparadun to my line, and more times than not, they deliver fish. The trout take them with confidence. Occasionally one color works better than the other, so I have to experiment with a few fly changes. Size is another variable that throws in a wrinkle. I carry mostly size 16 along with some 18’s and a few 14’s. Late season hatch matching on the Frying Pan River typically demands cinnamon comparaduns in size 18.

Turned Around

I counted my comparaduns, and not surprisingly, my supply seemed adequate. I do not recall encountering many pale morning dun hatches during 2025. I will certainly need to remedy that situation in the coming year. I did not tie additional PMD’s, but I did refurbish one that was reduced to a very sparse clump of deer hair fibers for the wing.