Hi,
Just working on my fly photography, so thought I would post a few spider patterns that I’m going to be tossing in the river soon (I hope).
Pritt lists this as a Blue Dun (actually, Pritt called it a “Waterhen Bloa”, but then says it’s identical to someone else’s Blue Dun. And, I had to make some substitutes for nearly everything so who know what this would be called ) http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g142/ … lueDun.jpg
I’m still working on figuring out the distance my camera has to be to focus on the fly properly. And, my lighting isn’t very consistent. None of this should come as a surprise because all I’m doing now is holding the camera in one hand and holding a sheet of paper behind the fly in the other hand. This neither makes for a stable camera shot, nor for easy to reproduce parameters! Still, it’s a lot of fun.
If you don’t have a tripod yet, get one quick. Also, get one of the clamp-on lamps with the silver globe from the lighting dept. of your local hardware store/shop. Clamp it to the tripod to shine on the vise.
Set your vise near the wall and tape the paper to the wall as your background, or tape the paper to an empty cereal box and set it behind the fly.
When you photograph close up you may have to move the clamp light to another location, but that shouldn’t be difficult to manage. Also, make sure whether your digital camera has a “macro” setting and use it for really close photography.
Keep working at it and you’ll only get better. Good luck.
Thanks! Wee wets (both spiders and winged versions) are not used a great deal here. Nymphing, dry fly, and sinking lines with large lure/streamer patterns are the most common methods. I’ve found, however, that like everywhere else in the world, a floating line and wee wets works well too. Having become interested in spider patterns, I’ve been trying them out for awhile now. So far, they’ve produced well in just about every river I’ve fished with any regularity.
Thanks for the tips. I’ve discovered the macro feature, and will sort out a system for the backdrop and lighting. You’ve given me a few ideas to play with. I’ve not checked to see if the camera can be attached to a tri-pod, but if it can’t I can set up a steady platform, etc. I think I know where in the apartment I can set up a white paper backdrop and not get into too much trouble.
I thought that “Spiders” had a palmered hackle, sparcly
mind you… The flies you photo’d much better than any I have done I might add, look like soft hackle wets, like from Dave Hughes’s Soft Hackle book… Am I just getting “CRAFT” or is the term “spider” interchangeable for wet and dry type flies…
I first stumbled across this style of fly while surfing the net for fly patterns. The pages I found were on “North Country Flies”, which called them Yorkshire Spiders. Spider is the UK term for what are called “Soft Hackle wets” in North America. Flymph is another term used, but I tend to think of them as having a tail/shuck. I think people get into arguments over these issues, so I won’t push it too strongly! (After all, I don’t think a Black Pennell is considered a flymph, or is it?)
Anyway, there are some “styles” of spider that palmer the hackle part way down the hook (Donald’s site shows some great examples of these under his Spiders link, below the Wet flies heading on the home page).
I think I’ve seen the term spider used to refer to any fly with a hackle and without wings. Dry flies without wings would be a “spider”, for example; a wet fly with a palmered hackle but no wings, like a “soldier palmer” would also be a spider by this definition (so yes, the sparse palmered hackle fly could be a spider depending upon the definition being applied).
Personally, I use the term to refer to wingless and tailless wet flies sporting a collar hackle. They may be dubbed bodied, have or omit a thorax, and be ribbed or not. Donald is the local expert on Spider patterns and I think he’s been involved in discussions on what the definition is.
The interesting thing is that “spider” as a style seems to be used to refer to a large variety of basic fly patterns that represent either mayflies or caddies or midges but not a fly that is intended to represent an actual spider!
Hi Jeff,
You are essentially correct, the problem is reading books published over a hundred years ago, the meanings of words change, sometimes quite radically.
I was going to post a long explanation here but instead I’ll prepare a page for my web-site on what I believe are the best ways to define - ‘Spider’, ‘Palmer’ etc.
When I’ve done this, I’ll post the page number here and await the incoming flak. :lol:
I’m not sure what the camera is actually? I think of it as simply a pocket 35 mm point and press job, without film. I haven’t even looked to see if it can be attached to a tri-pod. It’s an inexpensive model, but I’m pretty pleased with what I’m starting to get. Initially I was holding the camera too close, even for macro mode, so I’m starting to get a hang of what the proper distance is. I’ll need to improve on the lighting and the backdrop from my current handheld method, but these shots are mostly finding out what the camera can do easily. I like the colour and lighting on the last two, and the focus on the first 2. Once I work out the set up that combines the good bits, I’ll be quite pleased.
The camera is a Panasonic Lumix, with 5.0 mega pixels.
Here are a few more recent pictures with a slightly better set up. Need to work on the lighting direction to remove the shadow, but getting there. I’ll reduce these to links if I add more photos later.
Jeff, I put my background about 12 inches back from the fly. Solves the shadow problem for me. If I can find my old picture of my portable fly studio I’ll put it up here.
Ahh. I’ve taped some paper to the side of my computer desk, and then taped a match-box as a “shelf”. On that, I see my straw flag-pole fly holder. I have about one inch of play for distance with this arrangement.
I’m going to try adding some lighting from various angles to try and push the shadows away from the display area. Also turning off the flash (one of the tips I forgot to do) should help.
If that doesn’t work, I’ll try to emulate your set up by setting up a stand further out from the display. That should be possible as well.
Great! I’ve used mallard coverts instead of snipe, but I thought it was about right in colour. I suspect it will perform as well as the Dark Betty, and hopefully will find out this weekend.
)
