No Need to be Embarrassed!The Blushing Spider is a small pattern, designed to represent a Chironomid (or buzzer) which is flushed with haemoglobin. This fly will sit nicely with the rest of your Chironomid suggesting, soft hackle wet flies. It is interesting as far as other soft hackle wet fly patterns go. Here is why. Firstly the fly seems to work only as a size #16 on the waters I fish (a bit like my Mono Nymph pattern). If you tie a few in different sizes then they may work for you on your waters, but I find a size #16 to be the most effective.

Secondly, this soft hackle wet fly…well it blushes. I told you it was interesting as far as other soft hackle wet fly patterns go! It blushes orange-red. Let me explain. The underbody of this wet fly is hot orange floss. Over this I wrap some semi -transparent flat tinsel. You can stretch this tinsel gently between finger and thumb. As it stretches it becomes thinner. As it gets thinner it becomes slightly more transparent. You can stretch it this way before winding it over the floss underbody. By varying the number of layers of the tinsel overbody the colour intensity increases. Less turns means more of the orange colour shows through. The alternating, dappled light intensity and changing angle of light as the fly drifts along just subsurface, causes the body of the fly to appear to flash and flush hot orange at differing points along the body of the fly. Chironomid pupa (depending on species I guess) sometimes display a red or orange tinge just as they near the surface. This red or orange colour is the haemoglobin flushing through the Chironomid pupa before it hatches.

If you feel the tinsel is a little vulnerable to the teeth of the trout you can give the body a light coat of varnish or try giving it a clear mono rib. The soft black hen hackle does a good job at suggesting the legs of the Chironomid breaking free of its shuck.

I think there is room with this pattern for experimentation. I guess there is always room for experimentation with any fly. How would it fare with a sparse dubbing across all or part of the body? What about trying it in different hook sizes or different colours of floss underbody? Perhaps it would be effective with a different hackle colour?

 

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