Sunken Spinners

Getting ready for the move next week is keeping me busy and fishless. They say moving is one of the most stressful things people can do in their lives. It's more like exciting and tiring - I guess that's stress, but it sure doesn't feel like it. I'm actually having fun......maybe I need to go fishing to see the difference.

And now back to our regularly scheduled program......

When you think of spinners, you probably think of helpless, spent mayflies floating on the water surface being gently sipped in by trout feeding from below. You also think of accurate casts and delicate presentations. And this time of the year there are all kinds of mayfly spinners available to the trout as many different species are hatching on any given day. But if you limit your spinner fishing to just surface flies, you're missing opportunities.

Many spinners get washed under water and into the water column, becoming easy prey for trout. The spinners that make it through the calmer runs and pools, eventually reach the fast water - riffles and pocket water - that flow into the next pool. This faster water, some of it foamy and white, capsizes many of them where they become an easy meal for opportunistic trout.

So when the trout aren't rising and you're fishing subsurface imitations, try tying on a spinner and fishing it as a dropper off a nymph or on its own with a small split-shot on your tippet to get it down.

I tie and carry spinners just for this - they are just like the ones I fish dry, except I tie in two pieces of pearl flashabou on top of the wing in the same manner as I tied in the wing itself. This imitates the tiny air bubbles that get trapped in the gossamer wings that reflect light and give off a gentle sparkle to the wing. Give it a shot. You might be pleasantly surprised at how well they do.

Life is good. Just don't move too often.