Quote Originally Posted by Joe Billingsley View Post
Scott,

Several years ago, right after that fly came out as a FOTW, I exchanged a few emails with Roy because I couldn't get the fly to sit on the water correctly. Roy is a great, great guy and took me through the steps one by one to help me with the problems I was having and ways to correct them. He was telling me about all the different materials that could be used in place of the pheasant tail fibers and added this statement: "I am very reliably informed that the trout use the thorax as a target." I am still not sure why that pattern and style hasn't become more popular because it looks more like a real mayfly on the water than any other I've come across.
I have come to believe Roy's informant about the thorax was a trout. He's the Fish Whisperer.

Joe
I can't say from personal experience, but Datus Proper wrote in What the Trout Said, that upside down dries were poor hookers.
The earliest reference that I've come across to splitting the underside of the hackle with some kind of material was from Vince Marinaro in Ring of the Rise. He referred to flies of this type as "half-spent."