When Scott ( SKershaw ) was here a few weeks ago and we turned over some rocks on Rock Creek, I took note of the cased caddis. I've seen a number of patterns for those caddis, but never focused on them. Got to wondering how I would do it. I decided to do a rubber legs version - using barred rubber legs, black on white and black on brown, along with some magic stretch and some black d-rib to get the look I wanted. A dark brown marking pen was used for some additional coloration on the magic stretch and the white rubber legs material after various combinations of rubber legs, d-rib and / or magic stretch were wrapped on the hook. The standard peacock herl collar completed the fly. The flies looked pretty good in the fly box, without glasses. They lost some color and shape while catching fish, so this one isn't quite what came off the vice.



The operative words are "while catching fish." Like this little brown trout from the West Fork of the Bitterroot yesterday.



And this whitefish, one of four or five.



Like virtually every other fly, this one has probably been tied by others somewhere at some point in time. But in seven years of looking at fly recipes, I have not seen rubber legs material used for a cased caddis body. I think the approach has endless possibilities - hope you find a use for it and catch bunches of fishies with the flies you tie.

John

P.S. Can you spell "soft bodied zebra midge" ?? I think Sandy's chewable stonefly nymphs might have been crawling around in the back of my skull when I had the idea for the rubber leg material nymph pattern.