If you haven’t tried a Gamechanger fly yet, consider it. No reason trout shouldn’t love this pattern, except maybe the original size was on the large size for typical size trout.
New “micro” spines have been developed, which allow even smaller Gamechangers to be created. I tied up my first one with these new spines last night. It comes in around 2" long, with 7 SEGMENTS! Its really hard to imagine that. They can be tied with more or fewer segments to get different overall lengths…but 7 segments seems to be the favored design by the pattern’s creator, Blane Chocklett.
To help visualize the size of these…its about the length of 3 dimes. In fact, the HEAD of this fly is maybe just smaller than a dime.
Its also shorter and narrower than my index finger.
At 2", that puts it at about the size of a typical large fathead minnow from a bait shop. So, I’m hopeful the local crappies will find this to be deelish.
The spine formula is:
1 micro tail spine
4 6mm spines
1 8mm spine
then I lash down another 8mm spine to the hook shank, in order to attach all the completed tail sections.
Hook is a #8 (or could use a #6) Kona BGH hook.
Thread type & color of your choice.
Tail material of your choice, typically marabou or wrapped hackle.
Body material: 3/4" streamer brush, trimmed to a taper after completing the fly.
I did add a few turns of small palmer chenille (pink on this one) at the back of the hook before adding the streamer brush…just trying to fill in the gap.
4mm-5mm eyes
Thanks everyone!
Tied up another one last night. Thought it turned out just a bit better.
It seems like 3 turns of brush on the 6mm shanks is just about right. Its a place to start, anyway.
Dave, I bought the micro-spine starter kit and the tying brushes, but I am curious how you got the olive color just on the top of your pattern? I use dubbing brushes a lot in my tying but when wrapped around the hook shank, the color is of course all the way around the fly. Any techniques you can share would be very much appreciated.
I’ve used hen saddle for the regular sized Gamechangers. It works REALLY good. I think some sort of soft hackle would work for these Micro Gamechangers too. I saw someone else post a picture of one, but they did something else with the head. I’m not sure I have feathers small enough to create the correct taper. Definitely give it a try, I’d love to see it!
