Sparkle Dun

The Sparkle Dun, created by Craig Mathews and John Juracek in the 1980s, is a versatile dry fly pattern designed to imitate a mayfly in its emergent or newly-hatched dun stage. This fly’s defining feature is its shuck-like trailing sparkle material, which mimics the remnants of the nymphal exoskeleton. The no-hackle design allows the fly to sit low in the water, creating a realistic silhouette of a mayfly struggling to free itself from its shuck.

Before fishing a Sparkle Dun, lightly rough up the trailing Z-lon shuck with a piece of Velcro or your hemostats—this creates micro-fraying that traps tiny air bubbles in the film, giving the fly a subtle “breathing” shimmer that often triggers eats from trout refusing perfectly clean patterns.