It could be coincidence, but I’ve had good luck throwing Sulphur Cripple patterns. This weekend, a brown almost at 19″ took one. Last month, a 20″ brown ate one as well. (Blog posts here and here.) Even when it doesn’t work, the pattern gets a lot of looks.

Both times, I fished the flies on a Euro dry-dropper rig and attached the dry to a dropper tag. By doing this, I kept all line off the water and was able to handle some tricky currents. And, I noticed that the dry moved a great deal when attached to the tag.

YMMV, but here is the pattern:

• Hook: size 12 to 16 barbless dry fly
• Shuck: brown Z-lon or amber ice fur, along with mallard in dyed wood duck
• Body: PMD turkey biot or natural pheasant tail, sealed with UV resin
• Thorax: pale yellow Superfine
• Wing: natural comparadun deer hair or elk hair
• Hackle: cree, brown, or grizzly

Give it a go, and let me know how you do!