Caught a live one late last week while fishing the Crooked Fork Creek.



Hadn't seen one for a while. Guess I had forgotten just how leggy these guys are. I had been catching some fish on one of my earlier October Caddis patterns, but wasn't fully satisfied with the results I was getting and decided to go back to the drawing board.

Found some 3mm foam and some died deer hair at Kesel's Four Rivers Fly Shop in Missoula Saturday ( nice seeing you there REE and VEE ) in a good color for this local specimen. This fly came off the vice this morning.



Headed on over to the Lochsa this afternoon for a test drive. Didn't find any trout at the first run I fished, but ended up with six cutts in hand and counted another three or four refusals or misses in not much more than an hour and a half at the second one.

Went upstream to Crooked Fork Creek, to the spot where I took the pic of the October Caddis. There was quite a caddis hatch going on, but just the little guys, not the big ones. Regardless, this guy just slammed the CFC October Caddis. At just about 16", he's one of the biggest cutts I've caught on this creek. Had another one earlier down on the Lochsa that was almost this big.



A few minutes later, I ended the day with this guy, who is pretty typical of the majority of the cutts I caught today.



This is a VERY simple fly to tie, did better than I expected with the low water conditions on these streams, and held up well to eight fish in hand and a total of about two hours on the water.

The fly is tied on a size 10 Dai-Riki 280 2XL hopper hook. Cut a strip of the foam about twice the length of the hook and to width, slightly tapered wider at the rear to narrower at the front of the abdomen. Tied down the abdomen just back of midshank.

Tied in the rear "legs" ( Montana Fly Company centipede legs - small ) and advanced the thread to the wing tie in point, tying down the foam strip on top of the shank as I advanced the thread. Cut, combed, stacked, and cut deer hair wing to length, to extend well beyond the abdomen. Tied in the wing taking a generous number of wraps through the butts to secure it.

After tying in the deer hair wing, I advanced the thread ahead of the foam strip, pulled it back out of the way, and tied in the front "legs" or antennae. Pulled the foam strip forward over the eye then doubled it back to form a bullethead and tied it down.

There are reports of October Caddis on the Blackfoot and Rock Creek. Hmmmmm .....

John