Mastering the Caddis Hatch
Be the Caddis Hatch Master
There’s far more to catching trout on caddis than the old standby Elk Hair Caddis. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve caught thousands of fish on this bug. But I’ve also caught thousands more on other patterns. The river was in great shape the other day, and the fly fishing gods blessed us with a wonderful caddis hatch.
I have this one fishing buddy that is Elk Hair Caddis all day all the time. That’s fine, but I probably caught 2-3 fish to every one fish he caught. Want to know the secret?
Read the Rise!
Splish Splash! You know a caddis hatch is coming when you see a splash and nothing on the water. Caddis are quick buggers on the water….and when they are emerging. Trout will chase them aggressively up the water column….thus the splash. I hooked up a hopper dropper rig consisting of a Crystal Yellow Stimi w/ Rubber legs as my point fly and a caddis nymph as the dropper. I love our baddest caddis. There were yellow stones out, so that did well. The dropper was tied on only 12” beneath. Why? The fish were just starting to look up. Nymphs deep would not get any love. This is a typical tactic I use specifically for caddis…..and it got love!
Go Double Dry!
Double Dry Caddis action. When the hatch did come out, and fish were keying on them, I did a size 12 Elk Hair and did well on a couple of different patterns as the dry dropper. I want to mimic and injured caddis, so I used the X-Caddis. It too got some love. It's great emerger/cripple/I'm not quite perfect yet pattern. Keeping with mixing it up a bit, I also threw the AC Caddis, EC Caddis and our new Headlight Caddis. All did well, but I think the Headlight did a bit better this day.
Flash 'em
As the evening approached and the hatch tapered off, I went back to the Stimi as the point fly and tied on a Crystal Flash Caddis. Jim had a good time to continue to watch me catch fish. I do have to say, he was nice enough to go to the truck and grab a couple of beers for our obligatory end of day beer together. That’s it for now my fishy friends…..
Tight Lines and Screaming Drags