Ed Story designed the Crackleback as a sparsely hackled emerger and even suggested putting floatant on only the top half of the fly.

My favorite personal Crackleback story came several years after learning to tie it. One spring I was back visiting St. Louis on business and had been told by a friend of a place I could find fish in a collection pond on a nearby college campus. That evening, fish were rising under a small grove of trees. When I edged close enough to see what was going on, I saw that a small school of grass carp was feeding on some buds falling from those trees. Searching my meager travel fly box, the only fly that came close to "matching the hatch" was a size 14 beadhead Crackleback. In the next half hour, I landed three grass carp that averaged about 30" in length, then had the hook straighten on another fish. Alas, no more Cracklebacks in my box, nothing even close, so my evening was over. But what an evening it was.

Thanks, Ed!