Originally Posted by macrabbit
Since this is the Tweaker Swap, I hope that each Swapper will explain the tweak and the reason therefore: the expected benefit, etc.

What if we put up our own pic with explanation? That'd keep info and pic together (rather than Mistress posting pic and then Swapper describing it some posts below, disconnected

Looks like I posted that too late for the most prompt of us.

But here's mine-
As noted far above, my fly isn't quite a tweak to an existing fly. (Has anyone else noticed that I never seem to quite follow the rules? smile )
It's more an answer to a wish, one that I tacked onto a randomly chosen foundation.
Well, not quite random. I think that my idea man might have mentioned in our phone conversation something like, "...a white Nymphomaniac".
Anyway, his idea, what he wanted, related to a white or off-white insect, one simulating a nymph at shuck time.
I expostulated, thinking that nymphs don't usually puff their entire cuticle out thereby making themselves all white. They crack and expand from the front and wriggle forward; so the leading edge, pushed aside and away from the colored bug, will be a translucent whitish color, as will the rear as it is left behind, what with the insect's abdomen slinking forward. But in between, the darkness of the insect should show through the shuck; not as a solid color but as a dark shape seen through a semi-transparent envelope. He also was of a mind that the freshly emerged adult is pale. I say, pale, maybe, but certainly not white.
I didn't convince my friend; but that's ok, because I could be altogether wrong!
But I decided that no matter what he wanted, "I'm from the government and I'll give you what I say you want".
(Since I'm not the only -heck, not nearly the first- one he turns to to realize his ideas, another fella, I've heard, has come up with a white bug of some kind for him. I haven't seen it yet; I'm trying to get my hands on one.)
So I've come up with this Von Shuck. (And it's still in beta, as also mentioned far above. My friend had time only to rush by to pick up a half dozen, and hasn't yet fished them and given me feedback and suggestions. There might yet be a version 2.0.)

[Linked Image]

I'm not a photographer. Pictured is not what I see when I look at the fly. And it looks closer to my intention underwater.

White tail barbs, having been emptied. (And my newer pattern makes the tails shorter than pictured, as a nymph's are vs an adult.)
A whitish shroud over the abdomen (similar to LaFontaine's caddis pupal case, but tight against the abdomen, not puffed out, and ribbed), an attempt to get the impression of depth, of the dark underneath the light.
A "cowl" of whitishness, to represent the split front of the shuck. And that, I expect, should wave about in the water, adding some attractive movement.
And the front is more or less that of a Nymphomaniac, rubber legs and all, the dark new adult coming out.

It's a wet emerger.
Most mayflies emerge on or in the surface, but some do so on the bottom and then swim up, and others -type A's, no doubt- try to save time by changing clothes during their ride to the surface. Consider the Von Shuck one of those, or as a failed emerger who hasn't made it out and is now swept down the current, helpless.