Re: [VFB] Half Back Stonefly Nymph

[DonO]

Title: Meddelande

I just did a quick google scan of what's out there for half-back nymphs, and it looks like the pattern is not really nailed down.  So if the swaps contain different versions of this fly, they should all be effective.   My experience wit the half-back goes back to the late 70-'s, when I did a little commercial tying for the local shop in Casper and for one in Dubois, WY.   There were 2 basic patterns- the half-back and the full-back.  The halfback was tied 2 ways, with the case on the rump and with the case on the front.  Pheasant-tail was the choice of material, but some were tied with squirrel-tail.  Brown hackle palmering was the norm.  The pheasant-tail style with wing-case in front and split and folded under for legs was not considered a halfback, but a peacock pheasant-tail.   The body was always peacock from end to end, and normally weighted.  We didn't have the bead-heads then, but we do now, and they work.   Ribbing wire was common on all and normally gold or copper at the time.  Once in a while we got in some green wire.  The hackle was palmered across the whole fly, whether or not it was a full-back or a half-back.  Sometimes grizzly hackling was effective.  Today I use only speckled Hebert (SCB) for the palmering.  Different tiers had different ways of applying the ribbing, too.  Some ribbed under the casing (with the hackle), and some ribbed over the casing, but palmered under the casing, especially on the back end of full-backs.  This made for a fully segmented look on the tail.   I've tied halfbacks up to 1.5" long for folks who lived in the Jackson area, and they swore by them.  My favorite is one tied on small #10 shrimp hooks.  Common store-bought sizes are quite large, running from #4 - #10 in 6X shanks.   Over the years I've seen dozens of commercial renditions based on the old original themes.  I believe the original halfback was a combination of a picket-pin pattern, a wooly worm, and a pheasant-tail.   Just reminiscing, DonO