Legendary Fly Tier

Legendary Fly Tier Bob Quigley was clearly one of the most influential tiers of an entire generation. His trout and steelhead patterns, and his tying style, have been copied and revered for years. Honing his skills on such technical waters as Hat and Hot creeks, as well as the Fall River, Quigley developed a host of invaluable patterns that were a step above and beyond the traditional flies of his day.

Quigley passed away in June, 2012, after a prolonged battle with prostate cancer, leaving a void in the fly-fishing world that may never again be filled. His list of accomplishments is lengthy and varied, but perhaps he will be most remembered for his contributions to fly design and for taking a genuinely fresh approach to how trout feed on aquatic insects in transitional stages.

Quigley changed the shape of technical dry-fly fishing. That's an impressive sentence and an even more impressive feat. He coined the now-common term "cripple," and managed with that single word to alter the way many fly tiers look at patterns designed for technical fishing and flat water.

Instead of the traditional goal of creating a perfect match for the attractive full-blown adult insects pictured in books and magazines — whether mayflies, caddis, or midges — Quigley took a closer look at the exact stage, state, and impression of the real insects, and captured their transitional forms . . . and that monumental epiphany changed the way many of us approach fly design to this day.

With such patterns as the Quigley Cripple, Hackle Stacker, Flag Dun, and Film Critic, Quigley brought to the world a plethora of designs that we had never seen before. Broken, battered, and trapped insects gained notoriety and forever changed the nomenclature heard on many American trout streams.

Matching the specific state of the insects being fed upon, rather than merely the species or stage, brought forth a new era in both fly design and technical dry-fly fishing.

These days, "cripple" patterns can be loosely defined to include the now commonplace stillborns, emergers, drowned spinners, and stuck-in-the-shuck patterns — all of which imitate transition periods where insects are neither nymphs nor adults (and in the case of spinners, specifically not floating prone on the water per conventional wisdom).

These trapped, bedraggled, and vulnerable insects are analogous to the old, weakened, injured, or young animals in a herd of African antelope — with our friends the trout playing the role of lions. Generations of evolution have taught these predators that vulnerable prey are more easily captured and consumed, and are more efficient in terms of calories expended versus calories consumed.

We've probably all encountered snooty trout holed up in an obvious feeding lane that snub not only every perfect drift we put over them, they even pass up real insects we can see floating freely on the surface. To frustrate us, they prefer to feed only on unseen morsels we can't detect.

Many times these fish are selectively targeting crippled insects that lie flatter, partially sunken, have one wing up and one down, are still attached to their trailing shuck (thereby inhibiting their hatching progress), or are otherwise detained and delayed in that moment that they cross paths with the searching eye of a hungry trout.

Unable to complete the emergence process, these insects struggle feebly at the surface, writhing to right themselves and are trapped in the surface film with no chance of escape. Like those African lions, trout know an easy meal when they see it. Quigley recognized this tendency, and built several fly patterns around these hapless specimens. His legacy will live on in an array of flies that fool the most persnickety trout — and for that we all owe him a gracious nod.

One of Quigley's most popular patterns is the Film Critic, a great name for a brilliant pattern. Using Quigley's own ground-breaking Hackle Stacker hackling technique for flotation and the impression of legs, an ingeniously constructed yet simple trailing shuck, an accurately low hanging nymphal body coupled to an adult thorax and upright advanced wing, the Film Critic creates the impression of a mayfly nymph hanging in the surface film, distracted by its own stuttered emergence.

Half nymph, half adult, the Film Critic mimics a mayfly at its most compromised stage, dangling a nymphal abdomen below the surface while leaving an adult wing profile above to both better fool the target as well as provide good fly pattern visibility for fly fishers.

In keeping with form following function, the abdomens of all Film Critics are ribbed with copper wire, not only to reinforce, but, in Quigley's eyes, to add a bit of weight and allow the pattern to hang at the proper angle at the surface.

Using a curved hook to better position these important aspects of the fly at the proper place in the trout's view also affords a more than adequate hook gap, even when tied in smaller sizes.

As an added bonus, and contrary to many flatwater patterns, the Film Critic is extraordinarily buoyant, equally at home in the rough waters and pockets of Colorado's Rio Grande as it is on Quigley's slick home waters of the Fall River.

I am honored to present the tying instructions here for Bob Quigley's Film Critic. There are not many patterns that impress me the way both the design and effectiveness of this fly does. These steps are for the Green Drake version, but Quigley tied this fly to match many of the most common mayflies by simply altering sizes and colors as needed.

Materials Needed:
Hook: Tiemco 2487 #10-12
Thread: UNI 8/0 Grey
Shuck: Amber Z-Lon and Bronze Mallard
Rib: Brassie Hot Orange UTC Wire and single stand Brown Floss
Abdomen: Antron Dubbing To Match
Hackle Post: Black Polypropylene Yarn or McFlylon
Hackle: Grizzly Dyed Olive
Thorax: Same as Abdomen

1. Start the thread a third of the way back from the hook eye. Tie in a strand of amber Z-Lon and wrap back over it down the bend of the hook. Return the thread to above the hook point. Tie in a small bundle of bronze mallard flank, splitting the fibers equally on each side of the hook. Hold the split mallard fibers in place as you wrap over them to the base of the Z-Lon, then trim the Z-Lon to a short stub. Clip the butts of the mallard flank fibers and return the thread to the starting point.

2. Tie in a strand of brown floss and a piece of orange wire at the starting point, then wrap back over them to the base of the shuck.

3. Dub a thickly tapered abdomen from the bend of the hook to the starting point. Wrap the brown floss forward in an open spiral, then follow with a rib of orange wire. Clip the excess material.

4. Overlap the tying thread back on top of the abdomen and tie in the loose ends of a loop of black poly yarn. Trim the end of the yarn into a short, square brush. Double the looped end back, and bind it in place at the same point.

5. Pull the loop up and back, and wrap the base of the wing securely. Make sure it is snug, as we will be tugging on the wing later to create the Hackle Stacker wing. Tie in a dyed olive grizzly hackle feather at the base, with just a bit of bare stem extending beyond the tie-down point. Hang the tying thread at the base of the wing.

6. While holding the wing loop upright and taut, wrap the feather up the yarn, in tight, closely spaced turns. Wrap the feather back down through the previous turns to create a thick, densely packed hackle. Draw the end of the feather over the hook eye, and make three tight turns over the hackle feather, and around the base of the wing post, tying the feather off against the post.

7. Clip off the hackle feather. Dub more Antron onto the thread and, while holding the hackle and wing assembly out of the way, wrap a bulbous thorax. The thorax needs to be plump to properly splay the hackle, so it doesn't hurt to make the thorax a bit on the chunky side. Be sure to reserve space in front of the thorax to finish the fly.

8. Use your thumb and finger to sweep the hackle back toward the bend of the hook. At the same time, pull the hackle post forward over the thorax and make two or three pinch wraps right behind the hook eye, taking care not to trap any errant hackle fibers. Once the yarn is secure, pull the yarn tightly to bring the hackle flush to the top of the thorax. Follow with a couple more tight wraps to anchor it securely in place.

9. Sweep the looped end of the yarn back over the body of the fly, clearing the path to build a small thread dam in front of the wing. Whip-finish the thread behind the hook eye and clip. Trim the wing to just a bit longer than a shank length.