Houghton Ruby
The spent iron blue — crimson-dyed hackle stalk for the body, two pale blue dun hackle points set flat, and nothing else. Lunn dressed it to answer the one spinner fall that beats anglers most reliably, because the iron blue hatches in weather nobody wants to fish in and its spinner returns in the last of the light.
Cold, blustery days in May and again in September — the iron blue’s own weather — and the hour before dark when the spinners come back. Dead drift, no floatant on the wings; the natural lies flat IN the film, not on it.
Wings set flat put almost nothing through the surface film, which is exactly what the natural does — a spent spinner lies IN the water, not on it. Fish working a spinner fall in poor light are looking for that flat, dark, motionless silhouette and will refuse a high-riding dun.
