Every fly starts with a sharp hook.

De-barb & Sharpen the Hook

• At times people fishing with me have shown concern about using flies with no barbs. It has been my experience that fighting fish with a tight line allows barbless fishermen to land as many fish as those fishing with barbs. Also, fishing for Red Fish with barbless hooks allow hook setting techniques identical to those used by dry fly fishermen angling for Mountain Trout. Lightly lifting the rod is all that is necessary. This is a big plus when fishing light leaders.
• If you or your fishing friend ever gets hooked, you'll be glad you remembered to press down the barb.   :<)
• Cultivate the habit of sharpening the hook before any materials are applied. I don't know any experienced anglers who would consider fishing with unsharpened hooks. The hook sizes of Spoon Flies are up to you and your tying abilities. I've tied them on hooks from 1-0 to size 8's. My favorite hook for Spoon Flies is a size 4, but remember "the smaller the hooks get, the harder they are to tie". I'd recommend learning on a size 1 or 2 with a standard length shank (like a Mustad 39007).

Bend Back

• Since flies have very little weight, small adjustments can have large results. The "Bend Back" design was developed to enable a fly to swim with the hook point up. This is achieved by slightly bending the shaft of the hook down, just past the hook's eye. As shown in the illustration, the conventional hook swims with the hook point down because the weight of the metal in the bend and point of the hook acts as a keel. Whereas, the Bend Back design swims with the hook point up because the weight of most of the shaft and most of the bend are below the hook's eye.

Lead Keel

• It is the wobble or fluttering action of the fly that induces the strike. The fly's shape ( in some ways similar to an inverted air plane wing) makes it unstable in the water, however too much instability is not a good thing. The successful Spoon Fly has what I call "controlled instability". Adding weight to the keel of the bend back hook will make the swimming characteristics of the fly much more predictable. Before I started using weighted keels, the success rate of the useable flies that I tied was about 2 out of 3. The poorly balanced flies had to be thrown away. Since these flies are very time consuming and messy to build, I recommend using weight on the keel in order to produce more consistent flies.
• Casting a large or heavy fly is not pleasant, so I am always mindful of the fly's size and weight. The reason that I use a size 4 for sight-fishing is because the hook is plenty large enough to manage Red Fish and the fly is still relatively small.   NOTE: If I were blind casting I'd opt for a size 1 or 2.
• I stated above that since flies are extremely light in weight, very small adjustments can have large results. It is common practice to wrap lead wire around the hook and then lash down in order to add weight. In an attempt to use as little weight as possible, I chose to accentuate the keel effect by adding the lead as illustrated above. (Note: I typically use a double layer of .035 lead wire. Slightly flattening the lead wire with vise jaws or a pair of pliers will make it easier to install. Try to imagine the "sail boat's keel design" when choosing the placement of your weight. The lower it is positioned on the fly, the more stabilizing effect it will have.
  
  •  The Spoon Fly
  •  The Bare Hook
  •  The Mylar Body
  •  Crowning the Fly