My "Crippled Emerger" tutorial

[PACOFRANSICO]

Hey I've bin on a emerger kick for a couple of days. And I tyied a new version of a pattern I was trying to dial in last year. This is the first anyone has seen it. Be brutally honest. I don't have a name for it so if ya have any suggestions....
Matrerials.
1. Mustad model 94845 #16
2. Partridge neck
3. Brown wapsi dubbin (nymph)
4. Coastal deer hair
5. Furnace hackle
6. brn. 140 ultra thread
7. 2MM brown foam
STEPS

1. Tie in your prtridge feather 1/3 the shank lenght

2. Dub 1/3 the way up shank building a tapered body like you would on a hares ear.

3. Cut the thinist piece of foam you can tie it in pointing backwards. wrap it forward 2 or 3 times til body look uniform.

4. Clip about 20 strans of the coastal deer hair. tye it in with the tips facing forward and so the tips are a 1/4 in pat the hook eye. Keep th hair from spinning. You want it to flare right over the eye of the hook. Make a couple wraps between the tips and the eye to stand the hair up and keep it outta your way while threading your tippet. Clip the butts of the hair.

5. Tye in your hackle on your thread that you flared your deer hair.

6. Wrap the hackle a good 5 to 6 turns. Or what ever you thinks looks good. and whip finish behind the deer hair tips.

 

[JackM]

Nice fly! How come most cripples just look like a very poorly tied dry fly? And I mean that as a great compliment.

 

[skiltonian]

Emerger patterns are designed to imitate a struggling aquatic insect in the act of emergence, I think you are trying to do that by only using the foam up front, but IMO we've tied up a dry fly.
If you want the tail-end of the fly to hang below the surface film, the tail fibers can be eliminated or your trailing shuck should be sparsely tied in. A turn or two of lead wire at the bend of the hook also helps to sink the tail of the emerger below the surface film.

I'd also think about getting a hair stacker and tie in the deer / elk hair so the natural tips are tied towards the rear of the fly and trim all the "mess" up front off. Then tie in your hackle up front.

In all, I think you have a lot of features that will make this float like a cork and you may need to play around with it to get it to float right.

The fly below would be what I would tie using the material you've used.

 

[Fishidiot]

I like this fly and might even be inclined to stop at the deer hair phase and omit the hackle.

Being a big fan of closed cell foam I've spent a lot of time over the years trying to design an emerger pattern that satifies me and after dozens of different iterations I still can't seem to nail this fly, esp the smaller midge sizes. I have found that a fly that hangs just under the surface film in a HORIZONTAL plane rather than vertical seems to work best so I usually put the foam midshank. Although midges also emerge from their exo in a horizontal position, I still design my midges to hang vertically.

The trouble with foam is getting the right size "ball" to float the fly and it seems that the slightest difference in weight will require a different amount of foam, while keeping the foam to a minimum so as to maintain the fly's narrow profile. To deal with this problem, I'll tie several complete emergers with an extended foam post that protrudes up from the hook shank about a quarter inch for a typical #16 sulpher. Once tied, I'll soak the flies and throw 'em in a bowl of water. Each fly's foam post is very carefully cut down in tiny increments until the fly floats just at the surface level. I find you have to do this with each fly rather than trimming all to the same size. Some may be overtrimmed and sink. These flies are immediately discarded to the recycle bin. To be sure, this is a slow and painstaking process but it's worth it has it ensures that evey emerger in your box will perform (ie float at the correct level and position) that you expect.

 

[PACOFRANSICO]

I'm gonna play around with it. I'm goin' to cut the hackle flaton the bottom of the hook shank. Then I'm thinking of scalling back the tail and use a couple of strands of crystal flash or antron. Also I'll make a couple of under wraps of .010 lead in the back end to get it down. I just want the the hair n hackle just on the film of the water. I might try also a different hook maybe a 2x scud hook or kinkhammer hook


The fly the way its tied fished well only after it got sunk and water logged then it road just on the surface or below it.

Thanks for the input.