For this swap I wanted to tie an emerger. At the time this swap was beginning,
I discovered the "Quiggley Cripple" and John Shannon was kind
enough to send me the pattern recipe:
I found the Quigley Cripple in one of my fly tying texts, pages 91-94
of Tying Flies with Jack Dennis and Friends (my favorite non-Kauffmann tying
book). The book describes variants for different mayfies. I'll paraphrase
below one that sounds close to what you described.
Green Drake Quigley Cripple
Hook: Dry fly #10-12 (shrink to appropriate Baetis size) Thread: Olive Tail: Olive dyed grizzly marabou Abdomen: Olive synthetic dubbing or the marabou Ribbing: Single strand of yellow floss Thorax: 2-3 strands of peacock herl or dark dubbing Wingcase: Natural deer hair Forewing: Natural deer hair Hackle: Olive hackle
Instructions:
1. Tie in a sparse 2/3 shank length tail of the marabou.
2. Tie in the rib at the hook bend.
3. Dub a tapered body ~1/2 up the shank.
4. Rib the body and trim the excess.
5. Tie in the herl infront of the bady and wrap a small round thorax. Tie
off and trim.
6. Attach stacked, cleaned deer hair over the eye of the hook (tips forward).
Be sure not to let it rotate around the hook.
7. Trim the hair butts to form the wingcase.
8. Tie in the hackle feather between the wingcase and the forewing. Make
two or three wraps behind the forewing and tie off and trim.
9. Whip finish.
The fly is meant to float more or less vertically in the surface film.
The deer hair forewing represents the emerging insect, while the marabou
represents its nymphal shuck. To dress it, apply floatant to the emerging
insect (i.e., the deer hair forewing) and spit on (i.e., wet) the nymphal
shuck.
I modified this pattern to imitate a baetis emerger by using a copper wire
for the ribbing and a dark blue dun hackle rather than an olive. I also
tied the pattern in sizes 16 an 18.
I was not totally satisfied with the result as a baetis emerger. The color
of the marabou I used didn't seem quite right and the deer hair makes it
a difficult pattern to tie in small sizes. Nonetheless, since I tied a dozen,
I thought I'd include the fly in the swap as a bonus fly. We'll see how
it fishes.