Tips for fishing mayfly spinners, with Jim McLennan
The Orvis Fly-Fishing Podcast
James Hathaway
4.8 • 1.9K Ratings
🗓️ 15 July 2022
⏱️ 97 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, my guest is longtime guide, fly shop owner, journalist, musician, and all-around great guy Jim McLennan [40:26]. Jim is a thoughtful fly fisher who always has solid tips on fly-fishing techniques, and this week we talk about mayfly spinners—their mysteries, how to identify when they are active, and how to target trout feeding on them. Mayfly spinner falls are some of the best opportunities to catch large trout on a dry fly because trout gorge on them and sometimes get stupid, so it pays to have some intelligence on taking advantage of these opportunities. And this is a timely podcast because in most parts of the country, we are about to get into the prime season for the tiny Trico spinners.
In the Fly Box this week, we have some intriguing questions and tips from listeners, including:
Why can I do to prevent my mono eyes from breaking on my tarpon flies?
How do I clean my saltwater flies after a trip so they aren’t all mangled?
Can I use more than one subsurface fly with a dry-dropper rig?
How can I fish a deep plunge pool with a dry-dropper?
I have broken a bunch of rods in the past couple years. Is it due to my bad casting?
Some great tips from a relatively new angler on where to get the best help and advice.
What is a good way to enjoy a fly-fishing trip with a young family?
How can I break into writing stories and poems about fly fishing?
Is using a stomach (throat) pump unethical, and is it looked down upon by other fly fishers?
A tip for using neoprene socks when wet wading
In the short and long term, what do you expect the results of the Yellowstone flood will be?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi and welcome to the Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast. |
| 0:15.6 | This is your host Tom Rosenbauer and this week my guest is Jim McClennan. |
| 0:22.0 | Jim has been a guide, a fly shop owner, a writer, a musician. |
| 0:28.5 | Jim's been fly fishing for over half a century and Jim's one of those guys that really gets |
| 0:38.0 | into the nitty gritty of fly fishing. |
| 0:40.3 | He's based in Alberta, Canada on the Bow River and other surrounding rivers and Jim has |
| 0:46.3 | been a long time friend and just a great, very thoughtful fly fisher. |
| 0:52.8 | And the topic this week is Mayfly Spinners. |
| 0:56.3 | Mayfly Spinners can be a confusing aspect of fly fishing but they can also be one of the |
| 1:04.2 | best opportunities to catch a large trout on a dry fly. |
| 1:09.4 | And it's also a situation where the trout really feed with confidence and makes you feel |
| 1:15.4 | like a hero sometimes when they're on Mayfly Spinners. |
| 1:18.8 | I love, I will go out of my way to encounter a Mayfly spinner fall. |
| 1:25.9 | So we're going to talk about the basics and then get it a little bit more into the nitty |
| 1:31.8 | gritty black diamond if you call it, aspects of fishing for trout that are eating Mayfly |
| 1:38.3 | Spinners. |
| 1:39.3 | It's pretty appropriate because we're coming up now onto the trico season which is a |
| 1:46.1 | little tiny Mayfly which is most important in the spinner stage and hopefully it'll help |
| 1:52.7 | you all have a little bit more fun and productive time on trout rivers. |
| 1:58.8 | So hope you enjoy the discussion with Jim. |
| 2:02.6 | But first let's do the fly box. |
| 2:06.1 | And the fly box is where you either ask questions or make complaints to me or share tips with |
... |
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