Hendrickson –
Catskill Style Quill Body
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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
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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.
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.
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 1st 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
© Copyright 2005. This page can not be reproduced
without written permission from Sam Vigorita or Michael Ebner