Importance of Caddis Flies to us.

[Byron haugh]

Let me be clear. I probably use various stages of caddis fly imitations more than I do mayflies. I probably fish some stage of the caddis fly much more often than I do mayflies. Obviously, what I use depends upon what is happening on the water. If there is a good mayfly hatch in progress, I use matching mayflies. But, if there is not a mayfly/stonefly hatch in progress, I usually turn to some stage of the near-ubiquitous caddis.

I have mentioned here, in the past, that the caddis fly, I believe, has historically been underrated by early fly fishermen in the US. Some of the oldest books on fly fishing I have suggested that the caddis fly is not very important to the fly fisherman.....particularly compared to mayflies.

Anyway, I was re-reading a couple books recently and came across a couple statements which I believe are absolutely wrong, but do reflect some of the earlier thinking amongst some, I believe.

First, a quote from a chapter in a book entitled "Masters on the Nymph", which is a book of "articles" by many famous fly fishers. The book was edited by J. Michael Migel and Leonard M. Wright, Jr. and was published in 1979. In the book, one of the contributors is the duo of Al Caucci and Bob Nastasi who are a couple of my heroes.

The quote on page 44:



The book itself:





Then, there is this quote from the book "A Book of Trout Flies" by Preston Jennings, published in 1970, in which he states, on page 8:

[Rick Z]

On the rare times I trout fish I always start with a caddis.
Read someplace that caddis hatch all through the day so fish look for them.

Rick

[NJTroutbum]

I would agree with your thoughts. My experience has been that an Elk-Hair caddis, while not always the best pattern for a given setting, will nearly always catch fish regardless. And throughout the day. That tells me the adults are a steady part of their diet, and they know them quite well.

[dudley]

My local river is a caddis river
About the time that the river drops to a comfortable wading depth, the alder flies (actually zebra caddis, not true alderflies) are emerging.
Green Drakes and BWOs are both available to the trout at the same time but the fish could care less. I've never seen one taken.
These trout are only interested in the caddis.
Fishing a dry is usually a waste of time when this hatch is on, it's always the emergers or egg laying divers that draw interest

[herefishy]

I think that was Gary LaFontaine that said that about the caddis always being available because they drift around all the time.

[Byron haugh]

I think Gary is the author that Caucci and Nastasi were referring to when they said: "....should be aware of the recent exaggerated importance of caddis flies in the trouts' diet"

And, if you read Gary's book "Caddisflies" you will find that he too says that the caddis fly has historically been underrated by fly fishermen which is the point I was trying to make. It's hard for us, now, to understand that during the first 75 years or so of fly fishing history in the US, the caddis fly was so underrated, but I believe it was!

[whatfly]

Considering that I cannot tell what the trout are taking my nymphs for, very hard to say which is more important when fishing subsurface. When on top, clearly mayflies are more important, which is different than saying caddis are unimportant.

[DG]

Fished the Gunnison one spring during some excellent caddis hatches, several dozen fish a day on dries fished against the banks, river pretty much to myself.

And then one day there were salmonflies everywhere. So I dug out that box, caught a bunch of fish, had fun.

Next day, showed up to the river, people everywhere. Word had got out. And they were all fishing salmonflies, and nobody was catching fish on them. As trout rose to caddis around them. In the spaces between other anglers, I fished the same caddis I had been using two days prior, and was catching fish just fine.

If the trout want to eat caddis, feed them caddis. If not, use what they want to eat. I try not to make it any harder than that.

DG

[Kaboom1]

If the trout want to eat caddis, feed them caddis. If not, use what they want to eat. I try not to make it any harder than that.

DG

I could not agree more Dennis.
Brad

[Byron haugh]

Great idea. It's determining what they want that is the never-ending challenge.