Steve, answers as follows:
1. This type of Spider, also called Hewitt's Neversink Skater (this is
likely what I should have called the fly in the first place to avoid
ambiguity), has no patterns other than different colour hackles. It is
simply a few turns of stiff oversize hackle in the center of the hook
shank (usually size 16). I generally make a few turns of hackle "cupped
forward" and then re-tie and then put a few turns "cupped" rearward
ahead of those. Finding the hackles is the hardest part, Hewitt tied his
almost two inches in diameter.
2. They are poor hookers for obvious reasons (although naturally Hewitt
claimed to have no difficulty) but they do raise trout. They need not be
fished downstream, but can be worked upstream or on stillwaters.
3. Fly design can definitely make a difference, not because of imitation
as much as the necessity of a light touch on the surface rather than
something like a riffle-hitched fly (of course this works sometimes as
well).
In the 2000 World Championships, a couple of sessions were on the Test -
upstream dry-fly only. My Canadian team did well taking non-risers on
upstream twitched dries.
FWIW, here is a related part of one of my regular columns [2000]:
Memory
Sometimes a long-forgotten tactic is recalled by one event and then,
not long afterward, proves just the trick to fool a difficult trout
elsewhere. Back in the early �70's an American, Leonard Wright Jr.,
wrote Fishing the Dry Fly as a Living Insect. One of his ideas was the
"sudden inch," or causing a dry caddis, fished downstream, to hop
upstream by rod manipulation. I tried the technique at the time with
only modest success�besides, the downstream dry wasn't a favoured
approach�so it got tucked away.
Fast forward to the World Championships on the Test this past May. Top
Rod, a new monthly English newsletter about competition fly-fishing [now
sadly defunct, Paul], asked individual bronze medalist Gareth Jones of
Wales what worked. He replied, "An interesting technique, actually. Some
of the Canadian guys had done really well skating dry flies [NB:
upstream only per the rules]. ... I tried it and it worked."
Late September found me on a western-Canadian stream in the foothills
of the Rocky Mountains. Absent a hatch, a self-imposed rule of
"upstream dry to risers" lets me enjoy a longer walk with only minimal
interference from the trout. Hoppers were plentiful in the fields if not
in the stream, so a Dave's Hopper seemed a reasonable choice. An hour
and two modest risers later, I spotted a solid slurp at the front of a
smooth surfaced, slow-moving, tail-out. Two dead-drift covers were
ignored. Usually I would change flies, but the proximity of our England
experience and the Top Rod reminder had had me fooling about during the
week with twitch techniques. Giving the rod-tip a sharp downward snap
had gotten the fly to quiver with varying degrees, often acceptable, of
surface disturbance from the line. So, another cast, a twitch, and a
beautifully marked, nineteen-inch wild brown was a hundred and eighty
seconds away from release.
Cheers,
Paul
--
Paul Marriner
Outdoor Writing & Photography. Member OWAA & OWC. Author of Atlantic
Salmon, Ausable River Journal, Miramichi River Journal, and Modern
Atlantic Salmon Flies.
