Spinner Falls

[WDN FLY]

Is there a reason I'm missing why so many of my southern friends don't fish the spinner fall?

[William McClendon]

Ok, I'll play the dumb one...What's a spinner fall? Is it a fly or a time?
BTW I have been have good luck with a henweigh. Anyone try that?
http://www.georgia-outdoors.com/ubbngto/smile.gif

[The Ole Man]

Millam
It's when the adult mayflies (called spinners) die and fall prostrate on the holy waters of the trout world. I tried the henweigh but it overloaded my rod. http://www.georgia-outdoors.com/ubbngto/smile.gif

WDN: We probably don't fish it because we are so focused on threading niblets and salmon eggs on the hook that we don't even notice that they fell. http://www.georgia-outdoors.com/ubbngto/smile.gif

[KB]

Last fall I got caught on Holcomb creek at Sunset, rising trout all around me and the only thing I could get to chase my fly was an annoying little bat. That evening I wished I had some spinners with me.

[The Professor]

WDN,
the actual reason why we don't fish a spinner fall in the way you guys do up "Nawth" is that we don't have the m****falls, same as we don't have the m****hatches. Our streams are not near so fertile as they are in the Northeast. We get hatches, but not very thick and not over long stretchs of the river. The hatches are more sporadic and scattered.

Like KB said, we do get some but like almost all of our fishing, we don't have the trout zeroing in as strongly on one particular bug or stage of bug. At least on the parts of the rivers that hold trout. I really, really wish we did http://www.georgia-outdoors.com/ubbngto/smile.gif

[THE EG]

I got to experience the Mayfly hatch while my dad was stationed in Michigan on Lake St. Clair. Billions of adults would come out for only a few days. They would gather around streetlights by the millions at night and it would look like a yellow carpet for a hundred feet in all directions. They also popped when stepped on. It was like walking on bubble wrap. Kinda gross too. Boy did they stink when they all died at once. Every kind of fish loved them though. It doesn't happen down here.

[WDN FLY]

Okay Guys here is my opinion based on the info I have gathered and sorted in my semifunctional brain. You guys are missing out on some great fishing.

With sporadic to no hatches spinners are even more important to fly fisherman. I have a local stream that has rising fish almost every evening yet I have NEVER seen a heavy hatch on this creek. Once or twice a summer I might see an okay hatch of dorothes in the evening. It took me three years of frustration to figure out they were taking spinners. You see ALL the duns that hatch during the day will molt into spinners at the same time and mate and fall at the same time. This means that those sporadic hatches that don't seem like much turn into some nice spinner falls. I first discoverd this the same way KB did and it has been shown to me over and over since that frustrating evening. Fish love spinners, they take very little work to eat and the egg laden females are loaded with protien. I don't mean to seam like I'm preaching, I just want my friends to enjoy this sport and have as much success as they can.

So, basicly your lack of good hatches is an even better reason to check out the spinner fall fishing. OH, pack a flaslight they can come pretty late at night.

[DanS]

I watch for spinner falls. When the BWOs are on well at IF, there is often spinner eating activity around and the fish do key on them. We do have the additional obstacle here in Georgia of being banned from the streams before sunrise and after sunset. More than a few spinner falls happen away from daylight hours so it's hard to even know that they're happening and that fish, even in daylight, are apt to look for the spinner.

The lack of mayflies in general is another issue. Our bug population is scewed towards caddis (or at least the heavier hatches are).

[Owl]

WDFLy , the biggest hatchI've ever seen was the one at a small creek that Briggs and I fished ? ( BTW - Briggs, where are ya , man ? Hope all is well. http://www.georgia-outdoors.com/ubbngto/smile.gif ) These HUGE Mayfly's were coming off at about 3 or 4 every minute. This is a BIG hatch on small water in GA. I even had one in my mouth. Tasted yucky. Oh and when Ich and I were at Smith's there was a nice hatch of Caddis that was a little thicker, but the stockes aim is off so bad that hookups are harder than normal. They just plain miss alot ! Silly fish !

Owl

[WDN FLY]

Not being bale to fish at night stinks. Tonight I didn't leave the water until 9:45. If my feet hadn't gotten cold I would have stayed longer. The serious spinner feeding wasjust getting started. The fog made it very difficult to fish though so we had to fish within a 15-20 ft radius. Now I better understand why you don't fish the spinner falls, the state wont let you.

[jeffg]

WDNFLY,
Not many spinner hatches down here that I have witnessed. The thing is, you see the evidence that one is about to start....the flies coming out over the water, the birds getting anxious and swooping all around, and some big fish taking up lies in the slack water near the shore just waiting.
But as Dan stated, the only ones I have seen,fished, witnessed were at island ford, in the winter on bwo's that were too darn small to begin with.

It is nothing like the sulphers in MD and PA, the White Miller on the Potomac river, the PMD's out west etc....too bad though.

I would love to have the people on this board be on the Yellowstone is August waiting for the sun to come down. First you see the birds, then you see the fins barely breaking the water, the rusty brown spinners start floating past you and then you here the sipping of the trout as the suns last rays bounce off the water.
A spinner fall is one of the most magical times for fly fishing!!!!

[WDN FLY]

I would have to agree with you on the magic of the spinner fall. I drive two hours each way to fish for two hours in hopes of a good "fall". We leave Syracuse at 5 pm or so, get to the W.D. around 7pm fish till 10 or so and drive back home. We do this every week.

Yes, it would be nice to be able to share this with our friends on the board. The other night there were some real slobs (big fish) just sucking them in like candy. There were so many fish rising it looked like rain drops, some were no more than 10 feet away from me. Maybe next year some of you guys can make a road trip up here for the sulfur hatch or the Hendricksons. Yah! that's it a road trip next spring, There is even a nice place to stay right on the river with either rooms or camping available.

[Owl]

Slobs ? http://www.georgia-outdoors.com/ubbngto/smile.gif we call our big fish...logs, lunkers,......what else guys and girls ????,..... http://www.georgia-outdoors.com/ubbngto/wink.gif

I thought ' I ' was addicted driving hrs. to fish for 6 or so ( when I do the 1/2 day thing!!! )

[Frequent Flyer]

The biggest thing is probably the "no night fishing" rule. Another may be the predominance of caddis flies here. I have seen a caddis or two spread out on the water, but I assume most spinners are mayflies. Bad assumption?

Road trip? I'd love it.

[DanS]

Yes, caddis do not produce "spinners" as that is the name of the terminal phase of the mayflies. Mayflies do their last molt and become tiny angels with clear, flashing wings, long slim bodies, and brighter colors. They dance the dance of ecstacy and death above riffles, then as their energy reserves dwindle, they fall supine, wings splayed, on the surface (making little invisible foam angels) to float down into the slower water where the trout are licking their lips and wriggling their fins in culinary delight between hungry slurps.

On the hooch tailwater, the only mayfly I've ever seen in numbers large enough to provoke a semi-real "fall" are the BWO species. The spinners are tiny and hard to spot, but late afternoons and early evenings they can be seen in the slower water around IF once the BWO hatches are steady (if sparse). Trout do rise for them, but there are rarely enough to get the bigger onces to slide out from beneath their rocks and logjams while it's light.

Matching them is a challenge. A beetle or ant is probably a better idea than a #22 or #24 spinner pattern.