So beautiful, so subtle, the way the sip rippled the reflection’s smooth tapestry. I almost missed it — just a hint of life beneath the creek’s cool flow lazily winding among the painted oaks. Delicately winged insects drifted downstream beneath an overhanging canopy aflame in orange, yellow, and ginger. There it was again — a snout opened, barely a hint, and a sip. Something vanished.
I have never forgotten that day or the surprisingly large trout that so delicately and persistently fed in spite of my intrusion into their world. From my casting position upstream, only 20 feet away, one fly pattern after another floated past, rejected, snubbed, ignored, until finally I drifted a specific forgery to what I thought were very small trout. The delicate disappearance of whatever those fish were eating should have been an early clue. They were focused on something hidden, something floating flush in that lovely, airbrushed surface. The answer to the riddle was the spinner stage of a mahogany-brown mayfly common to the cool days of fall. My solution to the trout’s rejection of my perfect drifts was a sparsely tied fly — the Rusty Spinner.
With autumn come falling leaves, knitted hats, warm sweaters, and the addition of this indispensable pattern to my fly box. Here is how to tie it.
Begin by selecting a standard size 16 or 14 dry-fly hook such as the TMC 100. Crush the barb and insert the hook into your vise. Attach 8/0 rust-colored thread, starting three-quarters of the way up from the hook bend. Wrap back over the tag end of thread, stopping at the bend, and leave about six inches of the tag hanging out the back. Later, this will be used to split the tail fibers. Next, tie in two wood duck barbules for the tail, extending back beyond the bend about one and a half lengths of the hook shank. You can use synthetic microfibbets for more durable tails. Next, prop up the tail by wrapping a turn of thread behind and under it. Now take the thread tag and pull up and over between the barbules in order to spread apart the tails. Tie it down along the top of the shank and clip the excess.
The abdomen is formed by wrapping turns of thread. Return the thread to the tail and taper the abdomen up two-thirds of the hook shank. Tie in a sparse length of fluorescent flame-orange Antron that will later be pulled over the top of the thorax. Leave it hanging back away from the tie-in point for the wing.
The wing is light gray Antron. Cut a one-inch length and tie it in across the shank where the abdomen ended. Finish with the thread behind the wing.
Now make the thorax. Wax the thread and sparsely dub it with STS trilobal rust-colored dubbing — less is more. Figure-eight the dubbed thread, making a ball over the wing tie-in point. Stop wrapping in front of the ball. Now pull the Antron over the ball and tie it down just behind the eye. Trim away the excess and whip finish.
Now trim the wing to size. Pull up on both of the Antron wings and simultaneously cut the yarn to the length of the hook.
The fly is finished. This Rusty Spinner will make you very happy as selective trout sip in your steel-shanked bug.
— Andy Guibord
