Mayfly Cripple
Recipe - Mayfly Cripple
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View the Step by Step Instructions
- Hook
- TMC 100 #14 or favorite dry fly hook
- Thread
- 8/0 to match color of the natural
- Shuck
- Soft Hen Feather, brown
- Abdomen
- Thread, #14 and smaller
- Rib
- Opal Tinsel small or Opal Krystal Flash stretched very small
- Thorax
- Dubbing, to match the color of natural
- Wing
- Crinkled Zlon, dun, 2-3 strands
- Hackle
- Whiting Farms Dry Fly Saddle, dun, slightly undersized
California tier Bob Quigley developed the “Quigley Cripple” as a result of a fishing experience he had on Hat Creek. During a hatch, while fishing a small Humpy, Bob noticed that the fly seemed to work better the more chewed up it became. As an accomplished tier, he took to the vise and worked on a few patterns presuming that the fish were taking flies in the film as emergers or flies that for some reason were stuck in the film and would not complete the hatch process.
I first used a cripple pattern on the Missouri years ago during the PMD hatch. I have always liked emerger type patterns knowing the troutʼs fondness for bugs in that very vulnerable stage of emergence.
Just this past week (early May) on the AuSable river in Michigan, I stepped into perhaps the most spectacular Hendrickson hatch I have ever seen in nearly thirty-five years of fly fishing. The weather was raw. The only thing missing was rain. It was overcast, windy as hell, and in the low fifties. I guessed the water temp to be below 50. Great conditions for a Henny hatch, but not too conducive for good surface feeding. As the hatch intensified, there were enough duns in the air that the event looked like a spinner fall. Unfortunately, very few fish fed on the surface. Those that did only showed once. I tried the Rivergod Emerger with little success, parachutes, both dubbed and thread bodied were of little use. The Royal Wulff, which often works well in that situation, only took a few small fish.
I switched to a Hendrickson Cripple and started to work the cover. From the seventyseven steps of Spite Road access, to the steps of my first downstream neighbor (about 500 ft of water), I landed seven fish including a 13 inch Brook Trout and a 17 inch Brown. Only one had been feeding on the surface.
I will never know if it was the cripple pattern alone that turned the trick or the fact that I had added a small Opal Tinsel rib to the pattern. In retrospect, I believe that it was a combination of the two that made the outing successful.
In addition to my arsenal of Rivergod Emergers that I carry in depth, these days I carry a few Cripples in all the major hatch configurations from #18 SWO through the #10 Brown Drake. Most have an Opal Tinsel rib.
