My new favorite way to tie a spinner: Wally Wing Style!!!

I've mentioned before that I take a fly tying class every Tuesday night. I don't usually post the pattern that I learned at class because I like to take the time to perfect it first. This one was so cool, that I have to share it.

I watched Bruce Corwin tie spinners with Wally Wings before at Somerset and it amazed me. Basically, you pull back on the barbs of a wood duck feather, tie it in, and split it. This lets you use one feather, and have extremely detailed wings.

George actually showed us how to tie this in class tonight and it was easier than I thought. Check out the detail in those wings and keep in mind that it was just a single feather for both of them! (Full disclosure - the tail and body are sloppy as hell on this fly because my vise was mounted to a table that doesn't like C-clamps, and it was in the middle of an LL Bean store with really awful light. The wings still kick ass though).This is my first attempt at ever trying to tie this, so the wings aren't' perfect, but I'll get there.

Size 16 dry fly hook
Wood Duck feather (wings)
microfibbets (tail)
stripped brown hackle feather (body)
Superfine dubbing (thorax)

No hackle needed

As we all know, hackle has been hard as hell to come by. I've been getting around it by tying very basic comparadun and spinner patterns. here's some basic hair comparaduns that have me covered for sulphurs, light cahills, and whatever the hell that bigger light colored mayfly is that I keep seeing coming off around 8:45pm that I have yet to identify. I call this one MFX (Mayfly X). I've pulled fish with it this month so I know for sure that it works.

Size 14-18 dry fly hook
Cream microfibbets
Spectrablend dubbing - pale yellow
Comparadun Elk Hair - bleached cream




I also whipped up some rusty spinners, but I have yet to fish these. I kept them very simple with a thread body. Dubbing the body seemed to make it look too bulky and natural spent mayflies always look thinner to me so I did without it. These can be tied in about 45 seconds once you get the hang of x-wrapping the wings.

Size 14-18 dry fly hook
Uni-thread 8/0 (rust)
Dun Microfibbets
White Antron Wings