… is basically a scaled down Duck’s Green Drake, without tails.
Another very simple fly using a furled extended body, a bit of dubbing, and the 9DH hackling method, although on this small fly I did not trim the hackle below the shank.
The fly is tied on a size 18 Dai-Riki 125 hook, which is a 2X short straight eye hook. The extended body is furled antron and .5mm StretchMagic. I used clear StretchMagic and colored it with an olive permanent marker. The post is white antron, and the hackle is grizzly. The fly as tied is roughly equivalent to a fly tied on a standard size 20 dry fly hook ( but has a larger gape ).
I fished the original version, with tails, several days ago on my home water and was very satisfied with the results. Yesterday morning, I decided to do a version without tails. After yesterday’s outing on a variety of water that was clear but the color of slightly watered down coffee …
… with the “no tails” version …
… I decided the fly deserved a thread of its own.
The fish pictured came up 5-6’ from the bottom through that coffee colored water to eat the fly in a very slow moving, almost still piece of water. Another dozen or so took it in fairly deep water with a decent current and / or faster shallower water.
The tails on the larger flies are relatively easy after you get the hang of it, and the antron and StretchMagic have enough body to furl well with the incorporated tails.
But on a small fly like this one, the stiffness of the moose tail fibers really does impede the furling. So the question became - why include tails on a fly representing a natural so small that the trout probably don’t even see the tails ??
[i]It does raise a larger question on whether tails are really necessary on any mayfly cripple, dun, or spinner pattern ?? As a fly tyer, the answer is definitely YES. As a pragmatic fly angler, the answer is mostly like NO.
[/i]The Duck’s BWO without tails fished as well as the tailed version did, which is a good start on a more definitive answer. Guess I will have to wait until next year to do some experimentation on the necessity / value of tails on a wider variety of mayflies.
Tied and fished another new fly yesterday - Duck’s Mahogany Spinner, without tails.
The new fly was a real hit with the West Slope cutts on my home water. Had about twenty fishies in hand and several more took their release at long distance in about an hour and a quarter. So for one more day, on one river, for one species of fishies, tails were not at all a factor in their seeing a fly as food, not fake.
All of this is not to say that some other flies with or without tails would not have done as well or better than Duck’s Mahogany Spinner yesterday. But the several times I’ve fished Duck’s BWO and the initial outing with the Mahogany Spinner are interesting anecdotal evidence, for what it is worth.
Over the course of five hours, from noon to 5:00 p.m., the temps went from the low 40s to the low 50s. On again, off again clear skies, partly cloudy, full cloud cover. Occasional very light breezes.
Caught the fishies on the rebound. A couple days of decent rain kicked the streamflow from about 500 CFS to almost 4500 CFS, but then it started dropping quickly. I think the fish didn’t eat a lot during the rapid increases and were especially hungry, and were really active even in colder water.
Had about twenty fish in hand with the October Caddis over three plus hours before I went to the Mahogany Spinner late in the afternoon. All in all, a very good day.
Arriving at the River Ribble just below Settle I was faced with a very mixed hatch, Caddis flies, duns (mayflies) and midges all coming off. Fish going mad. Try as I might I couldn’t get a rise to my fly. I tried every imitation I had of everything I could see on the water. Nothing worked.
Leaving that pool I moved upstream to the next. What I found there was the key. A huge spinner fall. The spinners were falling to the water and going down the small riffle into the lower pool where the trout and grayling feasted on them. Walking back to the first pool I tied on a spinner imitation. I only had 4 left in my box and they didn’t last long. A couple in the trees and a couple chewed by fish, but I had six fish in less than 1/2 hour. However just 50 yards away was my tying kit in my car. Walk to the car and tie up some more. In my haste I didn’t split the tails as I would normally. Back at the river once again I couldn’t get a take. A quick fix at the riverside, force the tails apart. And once again I was into fish.
Now that may have been the one time on the one river where tails made a difference, but I doubt it. Since then I always take the trouble to tie spinners with split tails. I’ve never known this to happen the other way around. Fish reject tailed imitations in favour of untailed ones.
Cheers,
C.
Somewhere in between are the myriad situations encountered by fly anglers on a regular basis - water condition, depth and flow, surface and turbulence effects, lighting conditions and reflection, type of insect and stage of hatch, species of fish, and on and on.
Putting tails on a mayfly fly for a particular situation based on one’s own experience makes sense. Putting them on all flies for all situations based on other people’s experiences doesn’t make sense ( to me ).
I plan to continue experimenting - and the neat thing about experiments in all things fly tying and fly angling is … they require you to go fishing as a part of the experiment.
John, When you’re putting the hackle on these little guys, do you do the hook hackle first , then the post, or visa versa? Or does it matter? Tied up a few (4) last night at therapy … errr … flytying group, and was befuddled. Still working on getting back to the tiny flies I haven’t tied in such a long time, and I seem to have far more thumbs than fingers.
I tie the parachute first, wrapping the hackle counterclockwise, and then wrap the hackle three turns in front of the post to just behind the eye.
On the Mahogany Spinner version, I actually used a white hackle for the parachute part of the 9DH and a brown hackle for the forward wraps to make the “wing” as unnoticeable as possible and the “legs” as prominent as possible.
Whether the fish are taking this as a mahogany or just another attractor, they are taking it in good numbers. Had about 20 West Slope cutts on it on my home water the first time out a few days ago, and about 22 today.
