Nelson's Caddis

Hook - any dry fly 12-18 (size 16 98480 in photo)
body - dubbing to match natural (dark olive in photo)
wing - 2 or 3 (depending on hook size) clumps whitetail body hair
hackle - dry fly brown or dark blue dun

Seeing Rays West Branch Caddis made me want to share my favorite caddis dry. This fly floats like cork, is easy to tie, and can be adapted to any caddis hatch. The original pattern calls for antenna but I seldom bother. You can see a high vis version and tying instructions here: [url=http://www.flyfishingmainerivers.com/writerpages/marshall/articles/flies/hivzebra/hivZcaddis.htm:d1812]http://www.flyfishingmainerivers.com/writerpages/marshall/articles/flies/hivzebra/hivZcaddis.htm[/url:d1812]
I have had fantastic results with this fly. If I had to pick just one fly to fish the Kennebec (in Maine) with this would be it! I apologize for the photo but I am just learning to use my camera.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ons_caddis.jpg

There you go. Great little Trude fly. I use the Deer Hair (Trude) Caddis (See Dick Stewart's "Bass Flies") that's basically the same thing (except I use light olive dubbing) in a size 8 here in Florida sometimes for LMB, especially the educated ones that have gone back to eating insects due to being caught so much on large flies and lures.


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Robert B. McCorquodale
Sebring, FL

"Flip a fly"

Actually the tying of this fly differs greatly from a Trude. The wing is 3 seperate clumps of deer body hair. All the Trude patterns I have ever seen call for a single clump of wing? Am I confused?

C16, nice tie. Nelson's Caddis is one of my amny favorite caddis patterns.
I like the EHC best, but Nelson's right up there.

I think you're right about the Trude being a one wing flie, I tie the Nelson's in three or four stages depending on the size. -Yaf

No confusion if you are staggering a wing with three different clumps as opposed to one clump. Wasn't trying to "split hairs." http://www.flyanglersonline.com/bb/smile.gif It is still a Trude to me with just one wing (even though its tied in stages) on top and parallel to the hook shank. The effect to me is still the same when I look at it from below http://www.flyanglersonline.com/bb/smile.gif. Others may disagree with how I look at it and that's okay too.


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Robert B. McCorquodale
Sebring, FL

"Flip a fly"



[This message has been edited by dixieangler (edited 25 February 2005).]

Interesting fly! I'm curious, though, how do you go about dubbing this fly with the three sets of deer hair aligned across the back? Are you dubbing it first...but then you have those areas of thread where you tie down the bunches of deer hair. I checked the site you reference and they don't seem to have a dubbed body.

Put dubbing on after each clump of wing is trimmed. Then dub back over the trimmed butts up on to the wing for a turn or two. This hides the butts and settles the wing down a bit. I tried a couple without any dubbing (like on the link) and they look okay. I think I will carry some of each.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...c_nodubbin.jpg