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Quilled Spinners
Rusty Spinner
Tying Instructions
1. Insert hook in the vise and attach the thread in the middle of the shank. Wrap the thread to the bend of the hook above the hook barb. Build a small thread bump here.
2. Select 5-6 hackle fibers from a spade tailing hackle. I am using Light Pardo CDL from Whiting.
3. The length of the tail fibers should be about 2-4 eye lengths more than the shank length. The bobbin in the picture is resting near the midpoint of the shank with a few widely spaced spiral wraps. I will unwrap those spiral wraps back to the thread ball at the bend of the hook once ready to lock in the tailing fibers.
4. Attach the tailing fibers at the tie-in position at the bend of the hook with a couple of tight wraps at the base of the thread ball. Note how the tailing fibers splay out from the ball. Wrap the ends of the tailing butts just beyond the mid-shank position.
5. Select a quill and clip the tip where the diameter is about equal to the hook shank.
6. Attach the quill stem by the tip to the top of the shank and secure the quill to the base of the tail and wrap forward to the 3/4 position of the shank.
7. Wrap the quill with even wraps up to the 3/4 position and tie-in.
8. Clip the tag of the quills and wrap a few more times securing the tag end. Apply some UV Clear Fly Finish to the quill to protect the quill from damage.
9. UV Fly Finish requires a lamp to cure the finish to a hard coat within seconds. Use the lamp for about 15 seconds.
10. Select Dun Hen Neck Hackle Tips for the wings. The tips should be about two eye lengths greater than the shank length and the width should be equal to the hook gap.
11. Tips should be back to back with convex sides together.
12. Prepare the tips by preening back the unneeded fibers and clipping those in the tie-in location.
13. Tie the wings to the top of the shank about 3 eyelengths behind the eye and straddle the butts on the hook shank. Lean the wings slightly toward you and take one turn of thread around the butts and tighten. Take a second turn and pull back on the wings as you roll them to the top of the hook. Three more wraps in front of each other will anchor the butts.
14. Clip the excess tags of the wings and place some thread wraps behind the wings to stand them up.
15. With figure eight wraps, position the tips so that they lay horizontally. Bring the thread up in front of the wings and down behind the far wing. Position the wings by pulling the thread and take one turn of thread in front of the wings to lock them in place.
16. Apply Superfine dubbing to the thread and twist to a slender rope. Apply a two wraps of the dubbing behind the wings.
17. Then, two wraps of dubbing in front of the wings. Finally, two figure eight wraps below the wings. Don not apply any figure eight wraps above the wings as this would cause some delta wing positions when you fish the fly. Whip finish and apply cement. .
18. Whip Finish.
19. The finished Quill Body Rusty Spinner..
| Materials
to Order Material, click the link |
|
|---|---|
| Hook | TMC 100, #16-20 |
| Thread | Uni-thread Rusty Brown 8/0 |
| Body | Red Quill dyed Quill |
| Tail | 5-6 Light Pardo Tailing Fibers |
| Spent Wing | Pair of Dun Hen Neck Hackle tips |
| Thorax | Rust Superfine |
Quilled Spinners
Quilled Spinners are very slender in profile. They are mayfly duns that have molted their layer of exoskeleton. They do this to allow for ease of mating. Males fall into the water exhausted after mating while the females fall into the water, after they have rested, matured their eggs, and deposited the eggs in the water. The use of quills for the abdomen does a great job in mimicking this body profile. The quills have an advantage in showing segmentation as well as the light-reflecting qualities of the natural.
Tapered Profile
In addition, quills have great buoyancy and will give a tapered profile. Since many mayflies will mature into a rusty brown coloration, the Rusty Spinner has been a primary pattern that can cover many different mayflies, including Blue Wing Olives and Pale Morning Dun, and Callibaetis, since their bodies will all tend to have the same rusty coloration once the exoskeleton is shucked..
English Roots
Frederick Halford
Quill bodies on spinners has a long history going back to England where British anglers such as Frederick Halford (photo at right) preferred to use stripped quills to achieve natural segmentation and a thin body on his spinner patterns. H.G. McClelland wrote about stripped saddle hackle for fly bodies in his book, “How to tie flies for Trout and Grayling” in 1898 and how he learned of the material from a friend who stripped dark red gamecock for rusty spinners or red quill spinners.
Catskill Tiers
Across the pond, tiers such as Theodore Gordon, Harry Darbee, and Mary Dette, preferred to use stripped peacock herl on many of the Catskill patterns. Art Flick was known to use Rhode Island Red quills for his Red Quill pattern. A.K. Best was instrumental in re-popularizing the stripped hackle quill from his books in the 1990’s, A.K’s Fly Box (1998) and Dyeing and Bleaching Fly Tying Materials (1993).
Today, dyed quills are commercially available in an assortment of colors making it quite easy for the fly tier to utilize this material. D’s Flyes markets Quill Bodies from Chinese Neck hackles, Polish Quills are stripped and dyed Peacock quills, and there is now synthetic quills available in numerous colorations that are self-adhesive and tapered.
Spinner Wings
Quilled Spinners have traditionally been tied without hackles since the spentwings serve as floatation and the body should lie entirely within the surface film. This does make them very difficult to see and anglers often shy away from spinner patterns due to this. Spentwings have historically been feather tips from hen hackles, since they are broad with rounded tips. The tips will show a realistic profile of wings on the water surface with the hackle fibers producing a translucent effect of a wing.
The most difficult part of using hackle tips is to get them uniformly sized and to lay flat in a horizontal position. Some tiers find it easier to utilize fiber material for the spentwings such as poly yarn or Z-lon. This material is buoyant, durable, and easy to lash to the hook shank. The number of strands can be selected to give the proper effect of a translucent wing on the water surface.
Variations
BWO Quilled Spinner
| Hook | TMC 100, #16-22 |
| Thread | Uni Thread Olive 8/0 |
| Body | BWO dyed Quill |
| Thorax | Blue Wing Olive Superfine |
| Tail | 10-12 White Spade Hackle Fibers |
| Spent Wing | Pair of White Hen Hackle tips |
Callibaetis Quilled Spinner
| Hook | TMC 100 #14-16 |
| Thread | Uni Thread 8/0 Gray |
| Body | Blue Quill |
| Thorax | Callibaetis Superfine |
| Tail | Med. Dun Spade Hackles |
| Spent Wing | Grizzly Spade Hackle, 2 sizes over hook size |
Pale Morning Dun Quilled Spinner
| Hook | TMC 100, #14-24 |
| Thread | Uni-thread 8/0 Yellow |
| Body | Ginger Dyed Quill |
| Thorax | PMD Superfine |
| Tail | Light Ginger Spade Hackle Fibers |
| Spent Wing | Pair of White Hen Hackle tips |
| Hackle | Ginger Hackle, four turns, clipped on bottom |