Clouser Minnows and Lefty's Deceivers stand apart as some of the best and most versatile saltwater fly patterns of all time. They have both caught fish the world over and their species list accounted for is long and equally varied. The Half & Half has been around for quite a while as well, combining some of the top elements of these two incredibly effective flies and perhaps creates the ultimate saltwater fish catching machine. You get the swimming action of a Deceiver from the long saddles in the tail with the irresistible jigging action from the Clouser eyes in a pattern that, in my mind, outproduces both originals on their own.
Years ago, I was fishing a beach in the North Puget Sound. It was springtime and the docks at Cornet Bay were loaded with anglers pulling up surf smelt by the half-dozens on Sabiki rigs and filling their buckets. When I got the beach, the water was clearly alive with surf smelt and a few herring mixed in. Every once in a while, the schools would part and leap out of the water, smelt frantically fleeing whatever piscivorous predator was hot on their tails. I'd see occasional swirls and violent attacks as a mix of cutthroat, anadromous bull trout and feeder blackmouth raked through all the smelt.
When I went looking to tie a good smelt imitation, I couldn't help but start with the chassis from the proven Half & Half. Afterall, it's pretty long and swimmy, can mimic an injured baitfish in the water, and with the right color combinations would make as good a smelt pattern as any. On its maiden test, the new Hooligan Half & Half caught two large bull trout, a chunky cutthroat and a small feeder blackmouth off the beach. The fly has gone through numerous iterations over the years but the version featured in the video is what I tie most of the time. Sometimes I'll add some dyed pearl black or peacock Flashabou over the back to darken the dorsal surface but it works just fine without too. I don't tie the Hooligan Half & Half any larger than a size 4 standard saltwater hook and often go down to a size 6. While big fish are fond of eating this pattern, plenty of smaller ones will too and I don't want to risk maiming a cutthroat or juvenile salmon by going any bigger on the hook. You can make the tail as long as you like, everything seems to eat the fly head first and short strikes aren't generally a problem.
I either simply swing the fly in the tidal current on a strong tide with intermittent pulses of the rod tip or strip the fly back erratically to look like a wounded smelt. It has taken cutthroat, bulls, coho and chinook throughout the North Sound and if you tangle your running line on a cast and your fly settles to the bottom while you're dealing with the mess, small cabezon, rock sole and the abundant staghorn sculpin often eat it too once you resume stripping. Locally in Washington, smelt/eulachon/candlefish are often referred to as hooligans, which I thought would give the fly a nice catchy alliterate name.
Hooligan Half & Half Recipe:
Hook: #4 Daiichi 2546
Thread: White 140 Denier Ultra Thread
Tail Flash: UV Krystal Flash
Tail: 4 White Bugger Pack Saddle Hackles
Body: Holographic Silver Diamond Braid
Gills: Red 140 Denier Ultra Thread
Top Wing: White Bucktail
Flash: Silver Polar Flash
Bottom Wing: Gray Bucktail