When the thought comes, it’s on to the vise! I was thinking of mayfly spinners this morning, spurred by the interesting discussion in Colonel E. W Harding’s “The Flyfisher & The Trout’s Point of View” (J. B. Lippincott Company, 1931) and a pattern tied a few seasons back came to mind. Memory indicated I had never taken the chance to try the fly, so I sat down and tied five of them for the new, shirt pocket trial box I have been working to fill.
I have had any number of days when the heavily pressured wild browns of the West Branch Delaware targeted drowning duns and shunned the fully erect naturals and all imitations offered. Considering a new way to mimic those barely struggling flies more than two decades ago, I thought a type of dual soft hackle might be perfect. I tied wood duck flank tails and the tan abdomen of a Hendrickson on a size 14 dry fly hook, then wound a natural dun CDC feather for the thorax of the fly. A brown toned partridge feather wrapped in the classic soft hackle style finished the fly which proves itself when those difficult situations are encountered.
Harding’s thoughts regarding the difficulty in taking trout feeding upon spinners brought this soft hackled spinner pattern back to mind, as a different method of offering that image of life so critical in convincing an experienced wild foe! Yes, there are times when a typical dubbed and synthetic winged spinner fly will take trout after trout, but memory also holds images of evenings when that was not the case. I often wondered if the naturals weren’t struggling slightly, their last moment of life being the trigger for the feeding trout.
I had tied a supply of these and placed them in a fly box, though seem to never have had that box in hand when a spinnerfall appeared. They are here somewhere, though less time was required to tie a few more than to search a hundred assorted fly boxes.
The sparse CDC fibers and the speckled partridge feather offer a little movement while drifting in the current, the CDC doing double duty for both attraction and flotation holding a cluster of air bubbles. This spring, the Soft Hackle Spinners will be close to my heart in that shirt pocket box and should get their opportunity to entice a burly wild brown, sipping amid the shadows as darkness falls!
I confess that a great deal of my reading is focused upon volumes published during the Golden Age. Those who never journey through fly fishing’s history will never appreciate how much angling knowledge has been shared by those who preceded us. Much that modern anglers espouse as “new discoveries” has been contemplated for a century or more!
Bright Waters Catskill 