CRACKLEBACK
The Crackleback is essentially a gussied-up Woolly Worm. Like all Woolly Worms, it looks like nothing at all in particular, but the pattern has “bugginess” in spades. All Woolly Worms can be fished using virtually any subsurface presentation, but the Crackleback’s unique construction (like that of the Griffith’s Gnat) allows it to be fished on the surface, as well. Unlike most Woolly Worms, which are tied on heavy-wire hooks and feature chenille bodies and soft wet-fly hackle, the Crackleback is typically tied on a light-wire hook and dressed with stiff hackle and a body of tightly wrapped dry-fly dubbing or turkey rounds a feather fiber that looks and ties like a cross between pheasant- tail barbs and turkey biots.
Either way, a greased Crackleback floats like a cork. Tied in sizes 12 through 18 and in a variety of color combinations ranging from light dun to Adams gray, the Crackleback works surprisingly well fished dry during a wide variety of insect emergences, either on a dead drift or given an occasional twitch. Though this fly is most popular on put-and take Ozark spring creeks, where some anglers will fish nothing else, it is one of my more effective dun patterns during pale morning dun hatches on the Firehole.
This pattern was created by Ed Storey of Feathercraft in St. Louis, MO. It has been around for sometime, but the materials used to tie it have changed considerably over the past decade. The materials and colors as shown below have been very productive on several continents. The real beauty of this pattern is that it can be fished as a dry, in or under the film, and weighted it is a good nymph pattern. It does not imitate any particular insect, but the fish love it. And it will produce fish all day long. This is an easy fly to tie, and is very productive.
Material
Hook - dry fly 2x long size 8 to 14
Thread - black or olive
shellback - 2 to 3 peacock herl strand
Body - pale yellow or yellow olive dubbing
HACKLE- dark furnace brown hackle palmered
Jocelin & Sonie
1 comment:
Hey thanks for the great fly pictures and history. I had to pinch hit for my father-in-law's turn to be the club tier, he chose this fly but left me no directions. Now I am ready to tie! Thanks
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