Are all spinners created equal?

[jerseygeorge]

Guys (gals?)-

I was tying up some Hendrickson spinners, size 12, with the egg sack in the back. I am using snowshoe rabbit as per the article in May "Fly Fisherman" magazine.

snow shoe spinner pattern - this link may not work long

I was going to tie up some generic "rusty" spinners, size 12-16. I do all of my spinner fishing (trico's excepted) with the same pattern. A rusty spinner, long microfibbet split tails, thin rusty body, antron (or now snowshoe wing), thick rusty dubbed thorax.

Am I missing something? I always figured this covered sulphers, hendricksons, olives, blue quills, pretty much everything.

Any suggestions on something else that I should be adding to my spinner arsenal?

JG

 

[Fishidiot]

JG,
Sounds to me like you've got it nailed. Spinner patterns, like most mayfly imitations quite frankly, are often best tied sparse. In particular, I caution new tyers not to tie in too much wing material on spinners as this will make your fly a literal spinner and cause leader twist while casting. Synthetic materials work best IMO for wings as they shed water well. Sometimes I'll add a very small "wing case" of closed cell foam to give the thorax a bit wider profile and to help with flotation.

 

[David]

Well, have you ever not been able to catch a spinner eating trout with your flies? Chances are you've got most of them.

I do rusty spinners and black spinners. I have a couple different wing materials (feather, snowshoe, deerhair, antron) to change the bouyancy really just to meet the water conditions (smooth, choppy, broken). Other than that, I'm with you... I think the dead drift is really the most critical thing.

 

[jerseygeorge]

Well, have you ever not been able to catch a spinner eating trout with your flies? Chances are you've got most of them.

Last year (early may) I was on Big Fishing Creek in the evening with a buddy. It was the end of a long day and there were some fish rising/sipping in front of us. I cast an Olive quite a few times because they had been hatching earlier with no success. Then along comes Greg Hoover (Penn State Entomologist, well known). The three of us chat awhile, when Greg suggests they are sipping blue quill spinners. Not wanting to look stupid for not having a box of blue quill spinners I did what any guy would do, I looked at my buddy and said "hey, it's just about happy hour". He agreed, and off we went. It had been a long successful day anyway.

Now that I am tying up spinners, I just want to make sure that if I meet someone streamside, that actually knows what they are talking about that I can reach into my flybox with confidence and pull out something that at least closely resembles the fly on the water!!!

I have always used poly wings, but I am tying some up with snow shoe hair. It is a little challenging, since putting snowshoe hair into a hair stacker is akin to herding cats, but it makes a nice tie. Snow shoe works great on the USUAL. Looks good, floats nicely, recovers well with frogs fanny. The usual with one wing works great, so a spinner with two should work quite well. I will follow your recommendation and tie them sparsley.

JG

 

[jayL]

Coffin fly and trico are the only exceptions I know of. I have gotten yellow sulphur spinners from Jonas and fished them with success too. Perhaps it's just the shape, or the yellow color is a trigger during sulphur time?

 

[GreenWeenie]

Rusty spinners just about cover everything.

If using Antron for wings, after several casts the fly will begin to slowly sink. If you use synthetic material for wings use sparse poly yarn. Poly yarn is lighter than Antron and will hold up better in the water.

The best spinner wing is simply spinning a large cream hackle catskill style and clipping the top and bottom like a 'V'. These wings float better, don't get mangled after catching fish, and help keep the fly from tilting and turning in the water because there's less surface area touching the water than with the poly/antron wing. A spent spinner doesn't move on the water - it lies flat - and antron/poly wings once wet will get a bit out of balance and cause the fly to tilt/sink to one side and the increased surface area in contact with the water increases the risk for drag and unnatural movement.

 

[afishinado]

As GW posted, I agree that sparse hackle suggests spinner wings much better than antron, or polyyarn and find the most successful spinner imitations for me are hackle wing spinners. Hackle trimmed on the bottom allows the fly to float flush on the water. You can trim the hackle on top too, or leave in on for better visibility. I find the wings on many of the spinner patterns too prominent. Actual spinner wings are clear and very delicate.

Also a parachute hackled spinner works well. I just tie in a small foam or poly yarn post for visibity and floation and wrap my hackle parachute style. I trim the post short. Sometimes I will trim the parchute hackle fore and aft and leave the hackle on the sides to represent wings. In a pinch you can trim the post short and use a regular parachute fly to represent a spinner.

For super fussy fish, like on the D River, I tie a biot or stripped quill abdoman spinner with hackle wings. I looks very realistic and the fish seem to like it better than a dubbed fly. Good luck.

 

[jerseygeorge]

Thanks for the input. I will tie some up with hackles. I have quite a selection of dun and grizzley. Not much cream. I would think both Dun and Grizzley will work. I do use biot bodies, but different than most. If I get time I will post a photo. Learned from a professional fly tier, has worked out very well for me.

JG

 

[dryflyguy]

I tie cut wing spinners for really fussy fish - and they are a must for the challenging fish on the Delaware river.
The best wing materiel I've ever used, is a product called micro web. And the spinners tied with it were very effective for me last week on the Big D
Unfortunately, it's not made anymore
I met another angler last week who showed me some spinners tied with mallard quill wings - and they looked very realistic.
I'm going to try tying spinner patterns with it next time I tie them

 

[hammertime]

I like to use deerhair for my wings. Takes a little bit more finesse getting the hair right but I feel it does a great job.

Poly is much easier to use than the deerhair. But if I get some refusals from the fish while using a poly wing, I'll switch to a deerhair spinner for a different footprint on the water.

 

[Dizzy]

Let us know how those snow shoe spinners turn out… I saw that article too and was thinking of trying it.

I carry rusty spinners in sizes 12-20 and pretty much use the same recipe for all;
--Thread: 6/0 rusty brown
--Tails: Micro Fibbets, amber, tied split
--Body: stripped hackle quill, rusty brown
--Wing: 6-8 pc’s of Krystal Flash, tied split
--Body: few cross wraps of Superfine dubbing, amber or brown

The Krystal Flash is something I started doing years ago for trico’s… I saw it in an article somewhere (by Humphreys, or Harvey I think). It floats well enough when greased… creates a sparse, translucent profile… and always seems to pick up hints of light to help track the smaller sizes on the water.

Also you can vary the coloration of the fly by changing thread and/or dubbing colors if desired.

 

[troutbert]

GreenWeenie wrote:


The best spinner wing is simply spinning a large cream hackle catskill style and clipping the top and bottom like a 'V'. These wings float better, don't get mangled after catching fish, and help keep the fly from tilting and turning in the water because there's less surface area touching the water than with the poly/antron wing.

I also tie spinner wings with hackle. I prefer pale dun for most of the spinners. And grizzly for Coffin Flies (Green Drake spinners). I clip the bottom, but leave the top unclipped for visibility. These are easy to tie, they look realistic, and they catch a lot of fish.

Of course you also have your Mepps spinners. No, not all spinners are created equal.

 

[Acristickid]

I had my most wonderful time fly fishing to a sulpher spinnerfall 3 springs ago. It was a beautifully calm evening and the fall was heavy.

The first time I ever fished one- and it was a doosie. Watershed moment for me in the sport. i.e. obsession

Havebeen chasing them ever since- never have seen one as magical since. Still keeps me chasing them.

Just a simple generic rusty spinner size 12 and 14 provided an hour of the best fly fishing I ever encountered.

This is the best time of year for us!

 

[Padraic]

White flies and cahills stay white in their spinner form. Wouldn't be a bad idea to have some of those. The best cahill spinner pattern I found was a parachute... not that the fly type was so important, but the post was a bright yellow antron. Really helped to see it in the evening gloom. Cahills are a good searching fly in the late spring and summer because the hatch is sporatic and the period covers such a long time, like other types of sulphurs.