Spent dry
Houghton Ruby
Trout · GraylingFilm
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.
Fish this when
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.
Naturals it imitates
iron blue spinner
Baetis niger spinner
Typical zone & fishable range
usually
Surface
Film
Subsurface
Deep
Setup sensitivity: high
Quick facts
Tying difficulty
Intermediate
Heritage
ModernClassicHeritage
Heritage
· William Lunn, Houghton Club, River Test, 1917.