Sunday 15 June 2008

Creeping Caddis

This is the scale downed pattern I have been having some
fish with . After seeing the demonstration on Oldsmugglers
Blog I decided to have a go . It's normally tied on a 10' or 12's
but in the clear water a 16's living larvae hook is the one I'm
using not easy and you loose a bit of neatness but the fish don't
seem to mind .
If you get the chance watch the Oliver Edwards DVD's
they just show what can be done on a fly hook ''fantastic''
is the only word to describe the tying . It makes a leap
from a rough imitation to a very realistic one and in clear
water with wary fish they make a difference .
The first thing is to take a cut of thin lead , he points out how
important it is to make straight cuts , I found this out myself
but it took a while .
Now take it round the hook working from bend to eye ,
make it as tight as possible !when working on smaller hooks
the lead can snap if you pull too hard . This pattern is good in
larger sizes and you can add more lead depending how deep
you want it to fish .
Tie in some yarn , keep the tying thread and yarn as close
match colour wise it makes things much neater .
Build up a nice head , it needs to be quite long so you have
room for the legs , once you are happy work back to the bend
now dub some Hares ear in back towards the eye , my version
Oliver Edwards uses Deer and trims it back but this works fine
and is easy , I use two colours natural and dark olive .

The 6 legs are Golden Pheasant Tail , I don't always get the
feet rite , this is achieved by the way you remove them from
the quill.

Now to tie them in the trick is to turn the fly over easy if
you have a rotational vice (mines on back order)not the end
the world if not . Hold the ends of the leg (foot end towards
the eye) and pull it from underneath towards yourself
catching it in against the thread ,the bobbin weight will
hold it, then another at the side , pull down tight this will
make the legs pop up in to position I give one more turn
to secure and move on to the next pair .
I add a quick half hitch knot to secure . Then turn the fly
back over .
Because the thread is the same colour mark it up with
a permanent marker to make the head .
A quick whip finish and we are nearly done , I now tease
some of the dubbing out and trim .
because my legs look a bit curly (you will be better than
me ) I trim the ends off them a little too .
I finish it off with a little head cement and drop a little on
the leg area to make them secure .
The fly is quite quick to tie and the fish love them !
I have been fishing these up stream either on their own
or with a dropper , I have took fish from slower parts of
the river with the pattern being light and fished single this
is made easy , the takes are very positive the line shooting
a foot or more .
Hope someone will try this ....good fishing Tony

2 comments:

Matthew Eastham said...

Nice tying Tony! Have you tried Ollie's Baetis and Heptagenid nymphs?
They are both a bit of a sod to tie - the heptas in particular - but worth their weight in gold in certain situations.

If you look back at my March archive on NCA, you'll see some of the baetis. Believe me, absolutely deadly when the large dark olives are on!!

Enjoying your reports!

M

Anonymous said...

Excellent tying Tony! I like the caddis patterns. Also I´m always watching and applying Oliver Edwards tecnics.

Regards.

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