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| article: the reverse spinner by bruce smith |
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Dated: 12 May, 2009
 | | The Reverse Spinner |
The Reverse Spinner
The hatch was on big time, mayfly spinners from the family of Baetis were hovering above the surface everywhere. I studied their aerial movements being totally mesmerized by the up and down aerial dance, hypnotic and a beautiful sight of nature.
Then suddenly it came to me, these spinners were always facing upstream, hovering up and landing to deposit their eggs in the upstream position. I then asked myself, do our flies land in the same way; facing upstream. Creating a mental picture of a fly cast upstream to avoid drag showed me that they didn’t. When you think about it, most times your fly is facing downstream or to the side but never upstream.
It then came to me, what if we tied our flies in reverse, with the hackle at the other end of the hook and the tail at the eye. In regards to mayfly this would defiantly place our flies in the upstream position.
I do realize that flies tied in this fashion are not a new thing; however its use and history are indeed slim. This discovery occurred for me early in my fly-fishing career and at the time I set about tying a spinner pattern with this new concept. Tying the hackle in this new position wasn’t a problem nether was the body, but when it came to the tail and whip finishing it was rather awkward and untidy. Additional it was awkward when tying a leader to the eye of the hook with the tail in this new position.
So I gave the idea away for a while until I discovered the extended body tying technique and in particular the one applied to deer hair where we wrap the tying thread up the deer hair and back down. This on a spinner pattern produced a tail that was up and positioned away from the eye of the hook. When fishing this fly it performs exactly as intended and catches trout, but to tell you the truth it was no better than a normally tied fly. Its fishing usefulness slowly fell away in favour of other favourite patterns like the Macquarie Red and to disregard the Macquarie Red is like cutting off one of your arms.
Then one warm overcast day on the Rubicon River I happened upon a nice hatch of spinners I had a very frustrating time. Every trout rising would reject all my normal patterns including, yes that’s right, the Macquarie Red. Standing there utterly defeated in the flowing stream I searched and fingered all the flies in my box and uncovered my reverse spinner. Why not I thought, and on the first cast up came that Brown Trout snout engulfing the fly.
So why did it work? You could debate all day as to why this reverse spinner worked, but in my opinion it looked different and it certainly acted different with the fly facing upstream. So I think that there are times when a fly that is designed with just a slight difference to the normal will push it over the edge during those times where trout are fuzzy and meticulous.
O.K. lets tie the Reverse Spinner.
Hook: # Size 14 dry fly hook
Thread: Orange 8/0
Tail: About six strands of orange deer hair extend bodied wrapped
Body: Orange deer hair
Body Hackle: Small red cock hackle feather
Hackle: Red cock hackle
1/Tie in silk at the 2/3 mark wrapping back to the bend stopping when in line with the barb of the hook.
2/ Wind back to the eye of the hook and tie in six or seven strands of orange deer hair- do not spin.
3/ Holding the excess ends wrap thread around the deer hair creating the body, stopping and cutting excess away at the point where the hackle will be tied.
4/Wrap back to the base of the extended body and wrap around the deer hair working your way up. Make sure you retain the tension going up and coming back down, and then tie around the base.
5/Advance back to the bend of the hook and tie in red cock hackle feather.
6/Take the feather and form the hackle and tie off.
7/Tie in a smaller hackle feather, advance thread to the tail and form the body hackle. Tie off whip finish at the eye and cement head.
There you a Reverse Spinner.
Note: The tail of the fly can be bent to any position for appearance or to further balance the fly.
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Bruce Smith
Fishnet Pro Angler
Email : bsmith@fishnet.com.au
Reports brought to you by Bruce Smith Images- In Natures Realm
Phone : 0419 553 228
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