Hendrickson – Quill Classic and Spinner

Hendrickson – Catskill Style Quill Body

img_1911_oval img_1908_oval

img_1911_8x10 img_1908_8x10

Hook: 94840 (10, 12, 14)

Thread: olive (or black)

Body: mahogany (biot)

Wing: nicely barred wood duck

Hackle: med. blue dun and olive or grizzly dun

Tail: med. dun spade hackle

Tying this fly is very similar to the compardun, except this dressing follows the style of the classic Catskill dry fly. For the tail use spade hackle though instead of micro-fibetts. This not only continues the classic Catskill style but add a bit more buoyancy to the fly as the hackle is not as stiff as micro-fibetts.

The majority of Hendrickson’s are size 12. But you will run across Delaware R. hatches in size 14. The females are lighter in color and slightly larger (12-10’s) and the males (red quills) darker with sizes in the 12-14 range. The Compardun style is usually a better pattern for calm and flat water. This style can be more effective in 2-3 feet of rifflely water where the fish doesn’t have ‘time’ to really look it over. Under these conditions this fly can work all day long.

The Tail:

Dressing this fly is very similar to the compardun. Start with the tail. But for this fly using spade hackle don’t tie in the small ball of fur used to splay the micro-fibett tail. The tail should be about 1 ½ times the body length. (the length of the hook shank starting directly behind the eye, to where the hook begins to bend in the rear).

Attach the thread wind back to just where the hook shank begins to bend. This is usually just above the barb of the hook. Leave your thread hang and select some tailing. Find a spade hackle from the side of your dry fly neck. Stroke the feather fibers toward the base of the stem to make them extend 90 degrees from the stem. Then pinch a few and pull them from the stem, keeping the tips of the fibers aligned as best you can. If you mess up you can very carefully re-align them with your fingers. It’s important to have the tips aligned or after tying in the tail you’ll have two unequal lengths of tail after ‘splitting them’.

Sight measure the tails for length and hold them to the hook with your thumb and index finger. Then using the ‘pinch’ method take a loose loop over and around the tailing, pull up on the thread and lock them in place. Take a couple of wraps in front of the original tye in point to secure them. Don’t wrap behind the first locking wrap or you will bend the tail downward and/or spread them around the hook.

The last step for the tails is to figure 8 wrap them to keep them separated. First with you fingers separate the tails into two equal parts, as best you can. Do this with a gentle touch or you may pull the tails out or disturb their alignment. You’re just creating enough space to do the figure 8 wrap.

Take the thread over the hook and between the tail separation, then down and back under-around the hook. Do 1 or 2 normal wraps over the shank directly in front of the tails to secure it. Then take the thread under the near tail, up between the tails and over the top of the hook shank. Continue the motion and complete 1 normal wrap around the shank (again directly in front of the tails). Then one more wrap to lock it in.

You can do one more sequence of this figure wrap to insure the tails stay separated when fishing the fly.

The Wing

The wing is made from barred wood duck. Look at your wood duck feathers and choose one that is nicely marked but not with heavy contrast to the barring. And choose one that is balanced left and right of the stem, with tips that are nice and even. Being selective at point will ease making a nice wing.

Take the fluff off the bottom of the stem and smooth the feather by running it through your fingers. It should form to an elongated curved shape with all the fiber tips together. The tie in point is about ¼ of the shank behind the hook eye. The height of the wing is 1 ½ times the body length.

Put the feather on the hook with the curved side down and the tips extended over the hook eye. Take a loop of thread over and around and pull up to secure the wing in place. Take 2-3 thread wraps behind the tie in point to secure the wing and finish tying it in.

Cut the butts of the wing in “3 steps” starting behind the thread wraps back toward the tail. This lays the foundation for building a tapered underbody. Now with thread wrap over the ‘steps’ creating a nice tapered body, ending the thread behind the tye-in point for the wings.

Raise the wing to an up-right position. Move the thread in front of the wing and form a small cone in front of the wing to support it in the up-right position (about 10-12 wraps will build the cone).

Next split the wing with a dubbing needle into two equal parts. Then carefully wrap the thread 3 times around the base of the near wing and apply light pressure to the wraps to flair the wing. Then wraps the thread once over the hook in front of the wing and 2 times behind the wing. Repeat these steps for the far wing.

Why do all this? The wraps around the base of the wing and snugging up the wraps causes the wing to flair nicely giving it a more realistic ‘flat’ profile, looking more like a real wing, instead of two towers of wood duck.

The Abdomen

(the abdomen is tied just like when doing the Comparadun, though note a slight difference for attaching the biot)

The abdomen is a turkey biot dyed a deep mahogany (dubbing can be used, but the whole idea of these variation to the traditional recipe is to provide a more life like look to the fly, so seek out the turkey biot). Select a biot from the ‘short’ side of the feather and from the upper end of the quill. These provide a thinner and better biot for the abdomen. Pull the biot of the quill. This will leave a little curl where it separated from the quill. When tying in, the curl usually will be facing up.

Position the thread about ½ - ¾ toward the front from the tail of the fly. Hold the biot tip along the near side of the hook shank aligned so the tip can be tied in where the thread is positioned. The cup side (hollow side) is facing away from you and the curl at the end of the biot (from tearing it off the feather stem) is pointing out or toward you. Wrap the thread to just in front of the tail securing the biot to the shank.

Now wrap the biot toward the base of the wing. When wrapping an ‘edge’ should pop-up first, followed by the flat side of the biot, then an edge, then a flat side. It should look like this: |_|_|_ |_ If it doesn’t, start over and flip the biot around, and wrap again. When wrapping the abdomen don’t wrap all the way to the base of the back of the wing. Leave a little space to tye in and wrap the hackles.

The Hackles

Most pattern books list blue dun for the hackle of this fly. That’s the traditional recipe and can be used. But to give the fly more life use two hackles of slightly different coloring. If you only have duns of various shades then select a hackle from two different necks. Better combinations would be one medium dun and one olive-dun or one medium blue dun and one grizzly dun. The combination of two slightly different colors will give more sparkle to the hackle to better simulate movement and life.

Select two hackles. Always use two hackles on flys from 16 (and maybe 18’s) up to 10’s (and sometimes three on a ten and up). It’s better to use two hackles because the can be intertwined (see following instructions) in a criss-cross pattern to provide mechanical support, not just relying on the stiffness of the hackle itself.

Tye the near side hackle with the tip pointing toward the back and the shiny (good) side ‘in’ (pointing away from you). Tye the second hackle on the far side of the hook with the shiny side out (pointing) away from you. It important to face the hackles as described so that when wound around the hook one set of feather fibers tends to point to the front of the fly and the other tends to point to the rear. In this way the feathers interlock with each other to provide ‘mechanical’ strength to support the fly.

With the feathers tied in, take the near side and wind a few wraps behind and then in front of the wing. Then take the second and do the same. Whip finish a small head and the fly is completed.

What? No head cement. Using waxed thread and a whip finish is enough to secure the head. Adding head cement makes a shiney head. Have you ever seen a bug with a shiney head?

Quill Body Hendrickson Spinner

img_1918_oval.gif img_1914_oval.gif

img_1918_oval.jpg img_1914_oval.jpg

Hook: 94840, size 10

Thread: olive

Body: dark mahogany (biot)

Wing/Hackle: medium dun and ginger Hackle:

Tail: med. dun microfibetts or spade tailing

The Tail:

For the tail use spade hackles for up to a size 12 spinner. For size 10 and up use micro-fibetts.

Tie a small ball of mahogany dubbing directly over the barb. Keep it compact, you’re not applying dubbing to the hook, you are just making a small ball of fur which will be used as a fulcrum to spread the tails on the next step.

Select a few microfibetts or spade hackle for the tails. The tails should be at least 1 ½ times the length of the hook shank (a little longer is OK for a spinner pattern). Lay the tailing directly on top of the hook shank and tie in about mid-way on the hook shank. Be sure to keep the tails positioned on top of the shank as you wind the thread toward the bend of the hook where you tied in the ball.

As the thread approaches the ‘ball of fur’ secure tightly right up to the ball. You know you’re doing it right because the tails will splay outward as the thread pushes them into the ‘fulcrum’ created by the ball of fur.

You want the tails to splay outward horizontally from the sides of the ball of fur. If needed add some gentle pressures with your finger nail to position the tails properly. They should not be sticking up into the air and they should be separated for proper floatation on the water.

Start with the thread directly in front or over the ball of fur. Take the thread over the hook and between the tail separation, then down and back under-around the hook. Do 1 or 2 normal wraps over the shank directly in front of the tails to secure it. Then take the thread under the near tail, up between the tails and over the top of the hook shank. Continue the motion and complete 1 normal wrap around the shank (again directly in front of the tails). Then one more wrap to lock it in.

You can do one more sequence of this figure wrap to insure the tails stay separated when fishing the fly. The tail is done.

The Thorax

See tying instructions above. The procedure is the same.

The Wing / Hackle

The wings are key to this pattern. You want to achieve a glassy look for the wings to simulate the real spinner which has lost the color of the dun’s wing. To do this a mix of hackle color is used for the wing. Start with a blue dun, olive blue dun, or a grizzly dun. An olive blue dun is the preferred color as most spinners have an olive cast to the wings. Select two feathers from these color choices.

Tye the first feather good side toward you on to the shank. Tye the second hackle feather on top of the first.

The third hackle is the magic feather to create the glassy look of a real spinner. This hackle is medium to medium light ginger. A ginger hackle with a blue dun center is a very good choice. It adds the highlight of the ginger color but continues the blue dun color scheme. This keeps the abdomen dark and mixes the ginger highlights into the hackle wing.

Tye the third hackle onto the far side of the hook. Wind all three hackle to create the wing. Try to keep the wraps on top of each other without crushing the fibers for a denser wing. Leave a ‘lot’ of room at the front of the fly to create a tapered abdomen as well as the head of the fly.

So, after wrapping the three hackles use some dark mahogany dubbing to build a tapered body toward the hook eye. The 1^st turns of dubbing should be against the wing hackle.

(for smaller size spinners, normally just 1 dun and 1 ginger can be used for the wing)

The Finish

Create a small head and whip finish. Then cut a deep “ V “ into the hackle wing on the top and bottom of the fly. This will represent the splayed wings of the spinner lying on the water.

When fishing this spinner, if the water is very still and flat the bottom of the wings can be cut flat to the body to allow the fly to lay right in the surface film. Making this adjustment can also be effective during the early evening of the spinner fall.

Notes:

(*1) Use these proportions to make the mahogany dubbing: 3 parts brown rabbit, ¼ olive, ¼ black, ¼ red

(*2) The pinch method is. Hold the wing on top of the shank. Bring the thread up on the inside of your thumb, over and down the other side between the hook and your index finger, then under the hook and backup between your thumb and hook shank again. Then pull up to tighten.

Fly design, tyes and instructions by Sam Vigorita. Narrative by Michael Ebner