What the Trout Sees Blog- Murray’s Fly Shop- Edinburg, Virginia
Vince Marinaro developed flies which looks as much as possible like the real insects to the trout.
While fishing Falling Spring in Chambersburg, PA he explained that mayfly duns rode on their feet. With their bodies high off the water. He said that in this position the dun’s wings were the most visible part of the insect to the trout.
In order to tie a fly that would show the trout this image he suggested tying a dry dun with a broad natural looking wing. The trout would be able to see this wing. So we tied one hackle so it would slope greatly 45 degrees forward on top of the hook . It would also slope 45 degrees greatly to the rear below the hook. The second hackle would slope greatly 45 degrees to the rear on top of the hook shank. It would also slope greatly 45 degrees forward below the hook shank.
This presented a natural clear window so the trout could see the wing and the fly rode delicately on the toes of the hackle.
Vince called this a “thorax” style of hackling a dry fly. Do not confuse this with the thorax term applied to popular dry flies used now. This refers only of the positioning of the hackle.
In order to prove his point about the duns riding on their feet, Vince suggested that I get my head down close to the stream surface during a heavy hatch and look upstream. He wanted me to see how the flies rode on the surface. He was correct!
This method of tying duns is a little difficult to master but I do believe it produces flies which fool very demanding trout.