Joined
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13 Posts
Greetings all,
I hope everyone had a chance to get out and fish this past weekend and enjoy the beautiful weather... I know I did!
I'd like to bring up the topic of North country spiders/soft hackle wet flies, as many anglers seem to dismiss these simple patterns and opt for more modern/complicated to tie patterns. Because of all the snow we've had, I've been on a bit of a tying binge and decided to reference my fly encyclopedia to find something new. After stumbling across the section on traditional North country spiders, I decided to tie some up as they are extremely simple (any fly that is fast and easy to tie is likely to find a nice home in my box!). Now I'll admit that I was skeptical at first, but after several hours of research, I became infatuated with these flies. The versatility of them is incredible (more on my real world experience with them to come); fish them deep behind a bead head nymph, on the swing to imitate a nymph rising to emerge, dress them with floatant to resemble an emerger or a drowned fly/cripple. The possibilities seem limitless.
Enter the Mitchell: After seeing the forecast for Saturday, I decided to head up to the Mitchel to test out this new (to me) magic fly. I started with what I know best - high stick nymphing. Invariably, my first choice fly is either a bead head GRHE or Prince nymph, and I almost always tie one on before even looking at the water. Why not take the time to check if fish are rising? I guess I'm stubborn. Or Cocky. Probably both. But nymphing catches me plenty of fish and I like it. So for whatever reason, that's what I use.
Anyway, I tied on a BHP (#12 with a very lightly dubbed march brown spider (#14) behind it. I missed a fish on the first cast but nailed it on the second. After a short (but splashy) fight, I landed a nice brookie. It wasn't on the BHP, but the spider. Interesting. So I continued fishing and caught fish on both the BHP and spider.
I fished for about an hour and got hungry, so I sat down streamside and snacked. Remembering what I had read, I clipped off the BHP and tied on a single march spider (#16). This time I fished it on a swing, and after two misses, finally manged to hook a little rainbow. I continued this technique for some time and missed most strikes, but with a little practice I think it could become part of my repertoire.
It was about this time that fish started rising and ,much to my chagrin, refusing my subsurface offering. I began to reach for a #18 adams when I decided to try what I had read. So I dried my fly off and smothered it in floatant. I cast out to where I had seen a fish rising and... WHAM! Nicest fish of the day - a beautiful bow.
Disclaimer: I'm not saying that dressing a spider with floatant and fishing it in the surface film won't catch fish; it will, and it did for me (once). But let's talk about practicality. If you want to go through a bottle of floatant a day (we're talking liberal reapplication after every cast here, folks), fishing completely blind (half the time I wasn't even sure if it was still floating), and countless other frustrations, then this is your method of dry fly fishing! I think most of us will find, however, that changing to a fly designed to float is well worth the time and effort of tying a new knot with that pesky 7x tippet. I quickly switched to that #18 adams and proceeded catching fish.
When it comes down to it, the spider patterns really are great flies to use; largely due to their impressionistic nature. They don't look exactly like a specific insect but rather a little like a lot of insects - probably because of the lifelike action the soft hackle creates. But will they really catch you more fish than any other fly? Probably not. Trout may be smarter than the average bass. But when it comes down to it, trout are fish, and fish are pretty stupid. Anything that remotely resembles an insect is likely to take a trout. So to me, these flies are worth using because they are cheap, easy, and fast to tie.
Logic tells us that less time at the tying bench equates to more time on the river. This is definitely true for me. I can't count the number of times I've stayed up late tying flies for a last minute trip the next morning. Only to go to bed and sleep through my alarm; all but missing that golden hour of fishing at first light. To me, this is just another reason to add the spider patterns to my box.
So let's hear it. Does anyone on here have experience with North country spiders?
I hope everyone had a chance to get out and fish this past weekend and enjoy the beautiful weather... I know I did!
I'd like to bring up the topic of North country spiders/soft hackle wet flies, as many anglers seem to dismiss these simple patterns and opt for more modern/complicated to tie patterns. Because of all the snow we've had, I've been on a bit of a tying binge and decided to reference my fly encyclopedia to find something new. After stumbling across the section on traditional North country spiders, I decided to tie some up as they are extremely simple (any fly that is fast and easy to tie is likely to find a nice home in my box!). Now I'll admit that I was skeptical at first, but after several hours of research, I became infatuated with these flies. The versatility of them is incredible (more on my real world experience with them to come); fish them deep behind a bead head nymph, on the swing to imitate a nymph rising to emerge, dress them with floatant to resemble an emerger or a drowned fly/cripple. The possibilities seem limitless.
Enter the Mitchell: After seeing the forecast for Saturday, I decided to head up to the Mitchel to test out this new (to me) magic fly. I started with what I know best - high stick nymphing. Invariably, my first choice fly is either a bead head GRHE or Prince nymph, and I almost always tie one on before even looking at the water. Why not take the time to check if fish are rising? I guess I'm stubborn. Or Cocky. Probably both. But nymphing catches me plenty of fish and I like it. So for whatever reason, that's what I use.
Anyway, I tied on a BHP (#12 with a very lightly dubbed march brown spider (#14) behind it. I missed a fish on the first cast but nailed it on the second. After a short (but splashy) fight, I landed a nice brookie. It wasn't on the BHP, but the spider. Interesting. So I continued fishing and caught fish on both the BHP and spider.
I fished for about an hour and got hungry, so I sat down streamside and snacked. Remembering what I had read, I clipped off the BHP and tied on a single march spider (#16). This time I fished it on a swing, and after two misses, finally manged to hook a little rainbow. I continued this technique for some time and missed most strikes, but with a little practice I think it could become part of my repertoire.
It was about this time that fish started rising and ,much to my chagrin, refusing my subsurface offering. I began to reach for a #18 adams when I decided to try what I had read. So I dried my fly off and smothered it in floatant. I cast out to where I had seen a fish rising and... WHAM! Nicest fish of the day - a beautiful bow.
Disclaimer: I'm not saying that dressing a spider with floatant and fishing it in the surface film won't catch fish; it will, and it did for me (once). But let's talk about practicality. If you want to go through a bottle of floatant a day (we're talking liberal reapplication after every cast here, folks), fishing completely blind (half the time I wasn't even sure if it was still floating), and countless other frustrations, then this is your method of dry fly fishing! I think most of us will find, however, that changing to a fly designed to float is well worth the time and effort of tying a new knot with that pesky 7x tippet. I quickly switched to that #18 adams and proceeded catching fish.
Magic Fly?
I like old flies. I like the nostalgia. I can almost picture myself on a stream in England or Scotland when I use them - back in the glory days of fly fishing. There is something Romantic about it, and I think any fly that increases your pleasure in the sport is well worth using. Regardless, let's talk about pure function.
When it comes down to it, the spider patterns really are great flies to use; largely due to their impressionistic nature. They don't look exactly like a specific insect but rather a little like a lot of insects - probably because of the lifelike action the soft hackle creates. But will they really catch you more fish than any other fly? Probably not. Trout may be smarter than the average bass. But when it comes down to it, trout are fish, and fish are pretty stupid. Anything that remotely resembles an insect is likely to take a trout. So to me, these flies are worth using because they are cheap, easy, and fast to tie.
Logic tells us that less time at the tying bench equates to more time on the river. This is definitely true for me. I can't count the number of times I've stayed up late tying flies for a last minute trip the next morning. Only to go to bed and sleep through my alarm; all but missing that golden hour of fishing at first light. To me, this is just another reason to add the spider patterns to my box.
So let's hear it. Does anyone on here have experience with North country spiders?
