How to Tie a Simple Isonychia Spinner

Producer: tightlinevideo

Fall is finally in the air and, although they started hatching way back in June, sporadic Isonychia hatches are still happening, and will be for quite a while. One of my favorite parts of the hatch to fish is the spinner fall—when the duns return to the water to lay eggs, then fall spent on the water’s surface where trout gobble them with reckless abandon.

This simple Iso Spinner begins with a size 10 DF1 dry fly hook. It’s 1x long which helps to imitate the Iso’s somewhat elongated abdomen. After getting the hook firmly secured in the jaws of my tying vise, I load a bobbin with a spool of yellow UTC 70. The yellow helps the color of the rear egg mass to pop. Pull out what will be an overly long tag, say 4 or 5 inches, then get the thread started at about the midpoint of the hook shank. Take a few wraps rearward before snipping off the excess tag. Place the overly long tag within easy reach on your vise or tying bench.

Select two strands of your favorite tailing material, be they moose body hairs, Coq de Leon hackle fibers, micro fibbets or here, a couple bristles from a nylon paint brush. Make sure the tapered tips of whatever you choose are well aligned. You can do this just in your hand or use a nice small hair stacker. With the tapered tips pointing rearward, measure to form tails a little more than a hook shank in length. Then, transfer that measurement rearward to the start of the hook bend. While holding the fibers in the fingers of your left hand, snip the butt ends off above your tying thread. Give your bobbin a little counter clockwise spin, as if you’re looking down on it. This will cause the first thread wraps to jump slightly rearward and catch the very butt ends of the fibers, to begin anchoring them side by side to the top of the hook shank.

At the start of the hook bend, pull up on the tails and take a single thread wrap around the hook shank but beneath the tails. This should help to splay them ever so slightly, which will allow you to manually splay them even further, like so. To really lock the fibers in a splayed orientation, pick up that excess tag and place its midpoint into the hook bend then pull the ends up the bend and between the two tail fibers. As you keep tension on the folded-over thread, splay the tails even more until they’re just about 90 degrees apart. Then, take wraps of tying thread to anchor that thread tag and further fix the splay of the tails. You can then snip the excess tag ends off close and take a few thread wraps to clean up the area. A drop of head cement, here Sally Hansen Hard as Nails, applied to the base of the tails, will help to ensure they stay splayed and can’t pull out.

Although not essential, I like to use a small amount of pale yellow beaver dubbing to create a short, slender noodle on my tying thread. Go easy with the amount of dubbing here, you don’t need much. Take wraps with the dubbing noodle to form a short, spherical egg mass at the rear end of the fly. Again, this isn’t absolutely necessary but might represent an extra little bit of protein for a hungry trout, and it certainly dresses up the overall look of the fly for us humans. End with your tying thread an eye-length-and-a-half rearward from the back edge of the hook eye. I like to throw in a quick 5 or 6 turn, back to front, whip finish to make sure that my tying thread stays in that location.

The spent wings of the fly are created using a relatively new material from the folks at Fulling Mill. It comes in a wide range of colors, here, we’re going to use white. Its construction helps it to float a good bit better than similar products, as it’s both somewhat hollow and has been treated to help prevent saturation. It’s called Ultra Dry Yarn and should be available just about everywhere soon. Although it comes in hank form, there are easily identifiable thin strands. Cut one of those off down close to the cardboard backing then fold it in half to form a loop, and snip that loop to form two equal length segments.

Fold one of the segments in half so the ends are aligned, and it forms another loop. With the loop pointing forward, pinch the ends tightly in the fingertips of your left hand and begin securing the yarn to the top of the hook shank at the location of your tying thread. Take nice tight even-tension thread wraps rearward to really lock the material to the top of the hook shank. Maintaining your grip on the butt ends, lift them up and snip them off close, at a shallow angle. Then, take forward wraps, checking to make sure that the base of the wing is located right at 1 1/2 eye-lengths behind the back edge of the hook eye. After taking a few wraps around the shank in front of the wing, relocate your tying thread to behind it. Get hold of the loop and find its midpoint. Then use cross wraps of tying thread to begin anchoring that midpoint to the top of the hook shank. You should find that the loops are much easier to manage than frayed ends of the material would be. Once the wings are well separated with cross wraps, relocate your tying thread back to about the midpoint of the hook shank then pull the wings forward and out of the way.

Get hold of your favorite Isonychia-colored dubbing, here Spirit River UV2 Fine & Dry. After pulling an ample clump free from the packet, use the dubbing to create a slender 4” long noodle on your tying thread. Don’t overdo it with the dubbing, you can always add more later. Start taking wraps with the noodle so the dubbing begins right at the front edge of the egg mass. Keep taking wraps to build up a lightly tapered abdomen on the fly. When you reach the wings, pull them back and take a few wraps in front of them to hold them back. I need just a little more dubbing here to fill in the space between the wings so I go back to my dubbing packet, retrieve a small amount and use it to create a short,  thin noodle on my tying thread. It’s ok to create a noodle large enough to bulk up the area between the wings just a little, as this will help to keep them oriented at about 90 degrees to the hook shank.

Sweep the wings rearward and do a 5 or 6 turn, back to front whip finish immediately behind the hook eye. Be sure to seat the knot well then snip or cut your tying thread free. A drop of head cement, here again Sally Hansen Hard as Nails, applied to the thread wraps will ensure they don’t come unraveled. It’s always a good idea to use your bodkin to make sure the hook eye is clear of adhesive.

Pick up and pull back the two loop wings and snip them off even with the back edge of the egg mass. This will ensure that the wings are of equal length. Now they’re no longer loops but perfectly oriented, somewhat transparent but shimmery, spinner wings that also float remarkably well.