Something for Nothing Spinner

ALAN BITHELLSPLITS HAIRS AND TIES IN AN EGG SAC IN ONE SIMPLE MANOUEVRE.

The final life stage of an upwing fly, known as the imago, provides the fly fisherman with some of the best, and most frustrating, fishing. It is most associated with the evening time, but in my experience the best time for this kind of fishing has been the afternoon. However, I’ve come across spinner falls at all times of day.

One day I took a friend onto the River Ribble for an afternoon and evening. Because I was running low on spinner patterns in my fly box, I had tied up a dozen the night before. I’d used the idea of imitating an egg cluster at the tail root for the first time on those flies. Rather than put them directly into my fly box, I dropped them into an old 35 mm film canister.

At about 4pm we came across a large number of grayling rising at the head of a pool. The rise forms indicated that the fish were taking flies on the surface. The absence of any visible hatching flies prompted me to study the water surface carefully, and soon I spotted a spinner trapped in the surface film.
Of course, my friend, who was new to fly-fishing, didn’t have any flies to imitate spinners. On this occasion my generosity was my downfall. I simply handed him the 35 mm film canister containing all my new spinners. He proceeded to outfish me by at least three to one. My ‘old’ pattern spinners just were not as attractive to the fish as the new ones I had given him. Other than the added imitation of the egg cluster, the patterns were identical.

It caused my friend great amusement to not give me one of the new spinners. Eventually, he relented and my catch rate soon exceeded his.

Clearly this does not actually prove anything, but I now always tie my spinners with an egg cluster at the tail root. What I really like is that including this feature does not change the tying in any way. I simply change the colour of the floss which I use to split the tails. This is truly something for nothing.
I do not know who originated the technique of splitting tails with a length of floss. I was shown this technique by Mark Petitjean about ten years ago. It is the best method I have ever found. The two other techniques that are regularly given result in bulk at the end of the body which I dislike. It is just not possible to dub a small enough ball of dubbing to effectively split tails around, without it being excessively large, especially on hooks of size 14 or smaller. Using turns of thread also builds up bulk where I don’t want it.
Around the same time as that trip to the Ribble I started to use a loose loop to attach spinner patterns. This enables the fly to follow every little nuance of current that pushes on it. I immediately noticed I had many more rises to the loosely attached fly than I did to the rigid attached fly. No matter how supple your tippet, it will affect the drift of the fly one way or another.

Tying a loose-loop knot is a bit more trouble than a more usual Tucked Blood knot or Turle knot, but think of it this way: the work you put in gives you more chances to catch fish. Is it worth it now? Also, monofilament is quite soft and the steel of your hook quite hard (at least I hope so). This differential means that the mono you use will wear inside the loop. You must check it often and re-tie it frequently.

There are very few hard and fast rules to angling, but one is that the fish which catches you in a lazy moment, when you haven’t re-tied your tippet, will be the best fish of the day. It is the angling equivalent to Murphy’s Law. The chances of something going wrong are directly proportional to the size and/or scarcity of the fish involved.

• For full stage-by-stage tying details and the knot Alan uses, read the February issue of Fly Fishing & Fly Tying magazine.

The Something for Nothing Spinner with three split tails and an egg-sac.

There it is – just a hint of an egg cluster. A small detail, but significant. What’s more – you got it for free. Well, you had to split the tails anyway, so it cost you no extra effort just to use a different colour of thread.