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3. Rusty Spinners

I was fishing the Little J last night and ran into a very, very good rusty spinner fall. The only problem was that I didn't have any rusty spinners. They looked to be 14s or 16s.

Questions: 1.) did anyone else experience this hatch? 2.) are they sulphur spinners?

Yesterday afternoon I was organizing my sulphur box and decided I didn't need the rusty spinners because I've never seen them. Can I spell ass? yes I can. LOL! I've only ever encountered the straw colored spinners.

Bruce

I never leave home without a good supply of rusty spinners in sizes 12-22. They cover such a broad spectrum of bugs and so many times are fished in low light that exact colors of different spinners doesn't matter to the fish, only the fisherman.

Bruce,
I was on the river last night as well.
I would guess yes to sulphur spinners but there were also a couple of different cahils around and a few caddis to go with that. It made things real interesting as the fish started to target specific stages of different bugs. Or as I like to think of it HEAVEN. TO top it all off I only saw 3 other guys and they didn't care for the type of water I was fishing so I had over 100 yards of river all to myself :)

If you ever see my car on the river feel free to come looking for me you'll recognize ED's brand on it.
JW

Bruce,

I think for the most part a great many anglers over-look spinners. They can be on the water at almost anytime and not always in the big swarms we generally think of. I have watched isolated Epeorus and March Brown females on the down wind side of sweepers dipping their rears in to little areas of broken water to deposit their eggs. I feel the fish are used to seeing them and they may not be a bad idea as a searching fly when otherwise the hatch seems slow.

Swisher & Richards and others have discussed fishing them early in the morning after there was spinner activity the night before.

I would suggest Syl Neme's "Spinners"...It's an interesting book.

Spence

Early season spinner falls may be on the water at any time, depending on the weather. It's common here in Northern Michigan to have Hendrickson spinners in mid-morning, once the day starts to warm.
I feel for JOHNW.... I regularly fish a several mile stetch of water on which I have seen a total of one other fisherman in 27 years... lots of very nice brook trout..

Tim wrote:

"I regularly fish a several mile stretch of water on which I have seen a total of one other fisherman in 27 years..."

Damn Tim, I didn't know that was you! Hey! You should of slid down and I would of shared some of Lisa's famous "GORP" with you...He, he!

Take care! Always good hearing from you! Don't you over-work them Brookies now! We don't want to upset good old Rube Babbitt, eh!? They are all his fish after all.

Spence

The first brookies that Spence is speaking of were planted in the AuSable river system (MI) by Rube Babbitt, the very ancient conservation officer. In that capacity, he covered from Bay City to the Straits of Macinac on horseback. Those first brookies were transported in milk cans from a hatchery in Caledonia, NY.

So THAT's how they got in there! I wonder if that's also how brookies ended up in tributaries to the Rifle as well...

BTW, see my post on the "Fly Arsenal questions..." thread about the joys of having a nice section of water all to yourself. There's no other way to fly fish in my humble opinion - I see other fisherman, I generally go the other way...

Jonathon