A gradually increasing obsession with fly fishing…
While mayflies are often insects that fly fisherman get most excited about, caddis flies are one of the most common types of insect on the water. As a result it is essential to have selection of caddis flies tied in colours and patterns matching the insects on your water. We’re going to talk about how … Read more
This nice caddis emerger pattern uses New Zealand wool and partridge feathers as part of its components. More detailed than the Klinkhammer it is still a relatively easy fly to tie.
Materials needed:
Caddis Emerger
Hook: 1X-long dry-fly hook (e.g. Dai-Riki #300), sizes 14-18.
Thread: Olive, 6/0.
Bubble: White New Zealand sheep wool.
Body: brown rabbit fur dubbing.
Hackle: Hungarian partridge.
Thorax/head: Dark brown rabbit fur dubbing.
Caddis flies are one of the more common insects on trout streams. Often when trout aren’t active on the surface they will be feeding on nymphs below. Thus having a good selection of colours and sizes of them in your fly box is essential. This great video details how to tie a simple caddis fly nymph pattern.
This simple pattern is a great one to have in your fly box to represent the adult caddis fly. I reckon it can also pass as a grasshopper at a pinch. It’s nice and buoyant due to the inclusion of the deer or elk hair. This video shows how easy it is to tie.
The Pheasant Tail Nymph is one of those patterns that you should have lots of in different sizes and colours in your fly box. The bead headed version should be amongst those when a bit of sparkle or weight is needed (when trying to get the nymph to sink faster). This video shows how to tie the bead headed version.
The Pheasant Tail Nymph is one of the classic fly patterns that will do for a wide variety of situations and insects. This video describes the American version of the fly with legs coming off the side. It varies slightly from the classic Sawyer’s pattern but is great in it’s own right.
This video describes how to tie the nymph in smaller sizes. These are often useful for picky fish. Be sure to tie lots of the Pheasant Tail nymph pattern in lots of sizes for your fly box.
The Klinkhammer is to my mind the most versatile and easiest to tie of the emerger patterns. I regularly tie these up in a variety of colours and hook sizes to cover lots of situations.
This video shows how to tie a Parachute Adams which I feel is one of the most versatile of flies. The way the hackle is tied flat means that the fly almost always lands the correct way up and is very bouyant even in fast water. It is also very easy to tie. Typically we don’t tie these in sulphur colours like in the video. Choose colours that match your local hatches.
This video varies from the standard pattern in that it only uses one furnace hackle on the fly rather than the normal furnace and grizly hackle (2 in total). This is easier to tie on smaller flies and in my opinion on these smaller flies is quite adequate. This is the best way to tie smaller hook sizes (16, 18, 20’s and even 22’s), though I use it on larger ones as well.
The materials I use to tie the Parachute Adams are:
One of the things that I found most confusing when I started fishing was which fly do I choose when and what on earth are they all supposed to represent? That is why I wrote this article, to give the beginner an overview of what the flies represent. I’ll give a description of the different … Read more