Tying The 3-D Sucker Spawn
UNI Products Fly Tiers Corner
Just Some Loops of Pink Yarn!
January 2024
Article and photo by Steve Hudson
When I’m tying flies in January and February, I’m often tying with one goal in mind: to create flies that I can use for delayed-harvest trout fishing.
Delayed harvest programs target waters which are too warm for trout during the summer, but which become great trout habitat in the winter. These waters are then managed on a strict catch-and-release, artificials only basis through the colder months of the year, shifting to catch-and-keep (the harvest is delayed, in other words) as the waters warm sometime in late spring. And as state fisheries management agencies increasingly embrace the idea of delayed harvest, opportunities for good winter trout fishing are springing up where they never existed before.
That’s great news for us trout fishing enthusiasts, and one of the best ways to get in on the fun is with some sort of egg imitation.
The fact is that DH trout love eggs. They flat out love them. There are dozens of egg patterns to choose from, too, but I want to share my favorite one with you. It’s the 3-D Sucker Spawn.
I remember the day I met this fly. It was many years ago, and I was just learning about delayed-harvest fishing. A friend and I were on our way to fish a well-known DH stream. I didn’t really know what fly was working there. but I knew someone who did.
“Aaron, my friend!” I said when he answered my cell call. “I’m headed to North Carolina as we speak, and I’m going to try a little DH fishing. What should I use? What’s the secret fly?”
“Ahhh!” he replied. “No question about it. Use a Sucker Spawn!”
“What’s a Sucker Spawn?” I asked.
“It’s just some loops of pink yarn on a hook. Nothing to it. Got your vise with you?”
Of course, I said.
“Good!” he replied. “Just tie on three or four loops of pink yarn, each about the size of the hook bend. Use red thread, and make a big head. Fish it deep. It’ll work.”
Quick, simple and effective; now that sounded like my kind of fly.
The only trouble was that I didn’t have any pink yarn. But what’s that on the horizon? A Walmart. You bet it was and after a quick 10-minute detour I had a lifetime supply of pink yarn and was back in the car, bound once again for the river.
Streamside, while my buddy starting rigging up, I got out the vise and my brand-new yarn. Loops on a hook, eh? I put a size 12 nymph hook in the vise, started some red thread, and wrapped a thread base to the bend. Then I tied in a piece of yarn about 6 inches long and formed a hook-bend-sized loop as instructed. I formed the loop so it extended rearward, pulling the tag end of the yarn forward and tying it down. Then I formed another loop, this one off to the side, and did the same thing again as I worked toward the eye of the hook. Two more loops (one in the front and another just wherever it fell) brought me to near the eye, where I tied a much-larger-than-normal thread head.
A quick whip finish and a drop of head cement wrapped it up, and the fly was ready to go.
Total tying time for the 3-D Sucker Spawn was about a minute, so I tied up four of them and then set about putting on my waders.
My buddy was already rigged up, though, and I gave him one of the newly-minted flies. He took a look at it and said, “Loops everywhere, eh? Three dimensional.”
And the 3-D Sucker Spawn was born.
My friend tied the little pink fly onto his leader, made his way to the stream, and was already fishing before I even started putting together my rod.
I was just beginning to secure my reel when I heard an excited yell from the direction of the water. Looking up, I saw my friend with a bent rod. He already had a fish on – the first of many that would take the fly.
And that’s how it was all day. Those DH trout loved that fly. It really was a great egg imitation, too, and when wet it took on a luminous translucency that had “fish appeal” written all over it.
By lunchtime, we had managed to land several dozen fish, but had also managed to lose all four of the flies. But not a problem! I went back to the car and tied up a half dozen more, and we fished with them till dark. It was one of those days I won’t forget, and I owe it all to Aaron’s secret insight and to a skein of Walmart yarn.
