Fluorescent pink or orange parachute posts can help you pick out your fly on big rivers, and the trout viewing from below mostly overlook the bright colors. (Brian Grossenbacher photo)
June 17, 2015
By Neale Streeks
Mayfly spinners possess a rare quality of beauty and delicacy. Their mating dances vary in tempo, up and down aerial drops, and stream location, depending on species and water type. When the party is over, thousands of spent flies alight, falling to the water like snowflakes. The trout look up.
Fishermen, by chance or plan, find themselves in a target-rich environment. Lots of rising trout dot the surface. In places, those rings overlap like the Olympic flag. With luck, big trout heads protrude, gobbling in a fleeting bounty.
On fast-water streams, spinners flush out quickly. Anglers need to be aware, by watching both sky and water. Then they should act decisively. Secure the right fly, test the tippet, and start hunting rising fish pronto, while the spinners are thick.
Some trout stand their ground and feed in swift eddy lines, riffles, and boulder pockets. Other fish drop into slower water to feed on the dead flies that can't get away. Big trout often favor bank slicks, eddies, and tailouts, where they don't have to fight the current. In either case, the clock is ticking.
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On slower rivers, spinner falls last longer. The current doesn't whisk them away. They can circulate in big eddies for hours. Flat water means spookier fish, with more refined tastes. Finer tippet and more precise (or convincing) patterns are in order. You may not have to cover as much mileage as on fast water. Instead, you may have to spend more time per fish. On a fish-rich tailwater, a couple hundred yards can be all the river you need. Regardless of the water type, this golden opportunity won't last forever. When spentwings start bouncing off your wadered legs, it's time to pull out the fly box.
Spinner or spentwing patterns have been around for hundreds of years. When colonists were settling America, a handful of Englishmen were casting palmered spentwings on horsehair. Then and now the challenges include sneaking up on fish, mimicking nature's flies, and minimizing tippet diameter. Precision casting can make or break success.
I guide on Montana's spinner-rich Missouri River. Trico and PMD spinner falls can last for hours, and go on daily for months. Since spinners and their imitations are difficult to see on the water, added challenges arise.
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Many fly fishers can't see tiny flies at a distance, so visual aids are in order. Developing flies that are visible and sometimes bigger than the naturals is key (as long as they work).
Since spinners and their imitations are difficult to see on the water, added challenges arise. Skilled and sharp-eyed fly fishers have the option of "downsizing" when necessary. (Spentwings down to #28s are effective in some places.) Others choose to attach a tiny dry fly to a larger, more visible dry. There are times when two dry flies drag each other around unnaturally, though.
The following patterns are stylistic variations I've had success with. They can serve as starting points for the fishing in your region. Tweak, minimize, or add to these as your trout and fly-tying whims dictate. Depending where you fish, mayfly species, and even the sizes and colors of the same species can vary.
Combine onstream observation with a dedicated spinner selection, and success will follow. With twitchy fish, skilled casting is the most important factor. Make your first couple casts short of the fish, low, and quick, to feel it out. Put the next one just an inch on your side of the trout. Most trout weave back and forth a bit. Cautious repetition is the name of the game, as they have a lot of naturals to choose from. The worst thing to do is make the first cast too long, and line them. Game over.
Neale Streeks is a Missouri River guide with Montana River Outfitters (montanariveroutfitters.com ). He has written five books and numerous magazine articles.
CDC Compara-dun Compara-duns were developed in the 1970s by Al Caucci and Bob Nastasi. The original Compara-duns were tied with deer-hair wings, which are durable and still a good option. As with many things, time hid their success under a deluge of new patterns. But they work wonders, and like bell bottoms, are new again. Though they were originally tied to imitate mayfly duns, from the underside (the trout's view) they also look like spinners, and are easier to see from above.
Double Trico Parachute This has been my favorite Trico for the last ten years or so. Trout pick it out of the naturals, and anglers can see it. It fools around 80 percent of the fish on the Missouri, which is plenty.
Double Spinner This fly floats along under the 'more is better ' banner, and is also a little easier to see than a fly with a single set of spent wings. The Double Spinner has two sets of wings tied on one hook, and allows you to use slightly bigger hooks for a better shot at both hook-ups and landing the fish. Tiny hooks often end up pulling out of large fish, especially when they run through weeds.
Flop-over Spinners After years of having my legs awash in the Missouri's summer flows, it suddenly dawned on me that a third of the PMD spinners didn't die in the usual way. Rather than the wings on each side spread wide, they just fell over sideways. This creates a curved torso and one-wing look. Since this outline was not mimicked by any fly-shop offering, I figured a new tying style would fool plenty of fish. It not only works well — the single wing is easier and quicker to tie. Both duns and spinners of other species die this way, or at least a portion of them do.
Rusty Parachute Rusty spinners are imitations of male PMD spentwing spinners in my region, but also imitate other species here and nationwide too. Their numbers on the water are just a bit fewer than the pale olive/yellow females.
Sunk Trico Spinner Some Trico slurpers get fished hard, and as a result they become easier to fool just beneath the surface. With dry flies, the leader imprint on the surface makes a noticeable shadow, especially on a sunny morning. By sinking the fly and tippet just beneath the surface, you make nervous trout easier to fool. This has become a popular dodge among experienced anglers and guides, who use a variety of tiny beadheads rather than drys.
Most guides use a small yarn strike indicator to hang the Sunk Spinner beneath. [For instructions on adding a small yarn indicator to your tippet, see page 53. The Editor.]
The object isn't to get it deep, just an inch or two under the surface film. You can also use a dry fly for an indicator. On the Missouri, caddis are plentiful enough to attract trout all summer. A visible but realistic caddis pattern also makes a good strike indicator fly, as does the Double Trico Parachute.
Two Tone Spinners Traditional spentwing patterns have been around for decades, and continue to fool plenty of trout. Different wing materials, tail fibers, and dubbings have been conjured in every imaginable way. Natural spinner colors include pale olives to pale yellows, tans to rusty browns (including some pinkish hues), grays to almost white, and black. Some anglers add a short hi-vis post to enhance their fly's visibility.
