Hex Spinner

A dry fly, tied #6–8, a summer pattern. It is tied against 1 named insect in this book — June–July.

This is the spent-wing dry that follows the dun, tied on a 3X long dry-fly hook in sizes 6–8 with yellow 6/0 thread. Three moose hairs form the tail, the body is pale yellow foam or dubbed deer hair, and the wings are white poly tied spent, flat to the surface. There is no hackle at all, which is the point: the fly lies in the film the way a dead mayfly does. It is tied against the Hex, Hexagenia limbata, a mayfly of June and July that moves in water between 60 and 72 degrees, and trout are the fish it is dressed for. The fall comes in the small hours, later in the night than the dun, and it is often the heavier of the two events while being almost always the quieter one — no splash to mark it, just fish working under a surface covered in spent wings. It is a summer fly, carried for those few weeks.

#6–8Hook 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.

The end of a Hex night. The spinners fall around midnight and the fish that ignored the duns come up for these — flat white wings on black water, and you fish by sound. Drawn at #8 — 23.3 mm of shank and 7.0 mm of gape on a Tiemco 100.

The bare hook at every size this pattern is tied in, all to the same scale. There is no industry standard behind a hook number, so these are Tiemco 100 measurements and another maker's 6 will differ a little.

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.

Hex Hexagenia limbata · June–July · 60–72°F · #6–8

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	3X long dry-fly hook, sizes 6–8
Thread	Yellow 6/0
Tail	Three moose hairs
Body	Pale yellow foam or dubbed deer hair
Wings	White poly, spent
Hackle	None

When to fish it

The small hours, after the dun. Often the heavier of the two events and almost always the quieter one.

A summer pattern. The insects it matches are active june–july, in water from 60°F to 72°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.

Related patterns

Same type of fly, or tied for the same insects.

Open the trout map →Every trout stream near you, coloured by today's water temperature.