Snipe & Purple

Wet fly imitating mayflies, for trout and grayling. Beginner.

A short body of purple silk and one or two turns of a dark grey snipe covert feather.

Materials

• Hook: Wet fly hook, standard shank, heavy wire, size 16
• Thread: Purple thread, 8/0
• Hackle: Dark snipe covert (marginal covert of the wing), fibres 1.8× gape

Steps

1. Attach thread Attach the thread at 88% of the way along the shank with a few turns and trim the tag end.
2. Wrap thread Wrap the thread to 40% of the way along the shank in touching turns. To roughly above the hook point: spiders have short bodies.
3. Wrap thread Wrap the thread to 86% of the way along the shank in touching turns. A thin, even, single layer of silk.
4. Tie in: dark snipe covert (marginal covert of the wing) Tie in the dark snipe covert (marginal covert of the wing) with a few firm thread turns. By the tip, paler side up, barbs reaching just past the bend.
5. Wrap thread Wrap the thread to 93% of the way along the shank in touching turns.
6. Wind: dark snipe covert (marginal covert of the wing) Wind the dark snipe covert (marginal covert of the wing) forward to 93% of the way along the shank in 2 turns. Barbs flared evenly all round, so they catch the current.
7. Tie off: dark snipe covert (marginal covert of the wing) Tie off the dark snipe covert (marginal covert of the wing) with a few thread turns and trim the excess.
8. Whip finish Form a small head, whip finish with 5 turns and cut the thread. A small purple head.

History

A Yorkshire and Lancashire Dales spider. Pritt gave it as the "Dark Snipe" in Yorkshire Trout Flies (1885), a killer "on very cold days in the early part of the season, and a favourite on the Ribble". The earliest source found that calls it Snipe and Purple is Edmonds and Lee's Brook and River Trouting (1916), as "Dark Snipe or Snipe and Purple", hackled with a dark marginal covert from a snipe's wing.

Fishing it

An early and late season spider for cold days, usually taken for the iron blue; in smaller sizes it also passes for midges and other small dark flies. Fish it just under the surface, across and down or upstream, often on a team with the Partridge & Orange and Waterhen Bloa.

Sources

• T. E. Pritt: Yorkshire Trout Flies (1885)
• Edmonds & Lee, Brook and River Trouting (1916)
• Sexyloops: North Country Spiders part 2 (Ben Spinks)
• Hawker-Overend: Spider flies, how to fish these old classics (Andrew Overend)
• Yorkshire Dales Fly Fishing: North Country Spiders