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Gray Drake Spinner
A dry fly, tied #10–12, a summer pattern. It is tied against 1 named insect in this book — June–July.
A spent-wing dry tied for the one stage of the Gray Drake that is actually fishable. The dun is barely worth carrying; the spinner is the whole hatch. It is tied on a standard dry-fly hook in sizes 10–12 with grey 6/0 thread, two splayed moose hairs for the tail, a body of grey dubbing or stripped quill, spent wings of grey poly yarn, and grizzly hackle clipped top and bottom so the fly rides flush in the surface film the way a dead spinner does. The insect, Siphlonurus, is on the water in June and July in temperatures of 55 to 68 degrees. It is fished during evening spinner falls in those two months, over flats, where slow water and low light let a trout inspect a fly at leisure and where a flush-riding silhouette matters more than a high-floating one. Trout are the target species.
- #10–12Hook size
- dry flyType
- SummerSeason
- 1Hatch matched
What it looks like
A drawing, not a photograph, and not traced from one. Its proportions were read off 5 independent reference photographs of the pattern and written down as 5 measured characteristics — wing angle, tail length against the shank, how far a hackle fibre reaches — every one of which had to hold across more than one of them before it could be drawn. What survives across many photographs of a fly is the fly.
What it imitates
Each of these is the same hatch record the app's own panel reads, so a pattern recommended on a river card in the app is recommended for one of the insects below.
Tying recipe
In tying order. This dressing is the standard one — these patterns have been in the publicrecord for decades — and materials substitute freely: the proportions and the silhouette are the pattern, not the brand of dubbing.
| Hook | Standard dry-fly hook, sizes 10–12 |
|---|---|
| Thread | Grey 6/0 |
| Tail | Two moose hairs, splayed |
| Body | Grey dubbing or stripped quill |
| Wings | Grey poly yarn, spent |
| Hackle | Grizzly, clipped top and bottom |
When to fish it
Evening spinner falls in June and July over flats. The dun is barely worth carrying; this is the whole hatch.
A summer pattern. The insects it matches are active june–july, in water from 55°F to 68°F.
Target species
- Trout
Rivers it fishes well
Rivers with a page here that sit in the regions where the insects this pattern imitates are recorded. It is a claim about coverage, not a report of a fish caught.
- Au Sable River northern lower Michigan · July mean 72.1°F
- Muskegon River northern lower Michigan · July mean 71.0°F
- Saint Croix River northern Wisconsin · July mean 77.2°F
- Kalamazoo River southern lower Michigan · July mean 71.3°F
- Acme Creek northern lower Michigan · July mean 67.1°F
- Adams Creek northern lower Michigan · July mean 67.1°F
- Adams Creek northern Wisconsin · July mean 66.2°F
- Addis Creek northern lower Michigan · July mean 61.9°F
- Alabaster Whitney Drain northern lower Michigan · July mean 75.5°F
- Albrechts Creek northern Wisconsin
- Alder Creek northern Wisconsin · July mean 69.8°F
- Alder Creek northern Wisconsin · July mean 65.8°F
Related patterns
Same type of fly, or tied for the same insects.
- Adams (Catskill) dry fly · #12–20 — The original. Rides higher than the parachute in broken water.
- Parachute Adams dry fly · #12–20 — Universal mayfly dun imitation. Every angler carries these.
- Adult Cranefly dry fly · #10–16 — Long trailing legs, sparse hackle, skittered rather than drifted. Autumn and spring evenings on the bank side.
- Adult Damsel dry fly · #10–14 — Blue or olive extended body on a foam post. For midsummer afternoons on slow weedy water.
- Brown Drake dry fly · #10–12 — Dusk in early June on Michigan and Wisconsin sand-bottom rivers.