Importance of Caddis Flies to us.

[Byron haugh]

Gene,
Thanks for the information. Odd, but I don't recall seeing any in the shops in the Yellowstone Area, but all have the X-Caddis. I will look further into the Neff pattern, but wonder why I haven't seen it in shops or with guides?
Will look into it.

[Gene]

Byron, you probably won't find any, I think like anything else you have the new and improved version with the x-caddis series. Probably why Mathews came out with the X2 caddis, always trying to improve on a good thing. I personally think the fly works both ways, with or without the shuck.

[Byron haugh]

Thanks Gene,
Would you consider basically a hackleless EHC more of an imitation of an ovipositing female rather than a crippled rising Caddis?
If so, would you use an egg sack colored butt to the fly?

[Gene]

Not necessarily Byron, but I do put a bright green z-lon butt on a few just to have in my box. I fish few elk hair caddis, most are just old simple x-caddis, shuck, body and deerhair. If I fish a palmered body fly it is a Henryville in different colors. My other caddis patterns are the LaFontaine series of pupa and emergers. Most of the waters I fish here in Ct and catskills are much slower with long flat pools. Sparse patterns seem to be prefered.

Gene

[Byron haugh]

Gene,
What I meant was: if you fish the "Neff Caddis", do you consider it to represent an ovipositing female, as opposed to a crippled riser, If so, do you dub an egg sack at the butt?
Thanks

[NJTroutbum]

Byron,

The answer to your question on fly shops is more on the lines of what is being tied by the producing companies.

Most fly fisherman know you can adjust a pattern on the water to suit the conditions. Clipping the hackle bottom flush on an EHC is the ticket at times, sometimes removing a trailing shuck is better on a given day. I've removed the tailing from a Haystack to fish over fish chasing caddis with great results. Same with a sparkle or comparadun.

But you'll never see those patterns stocked in a proshop.

You may have a guide do it for you on the water though.

[Gene]

Byron, I consider it an adult, but as I said I do tie some with a shuck as an x-caddis and a few with a bright green stub of z-lon. Kind of a universal place to start. So until I add the shuck, it then becomes an emerger/cripple, or egg sack an egg layer. Just want to make it clear the Neff caddis has been around for a long time, other than Leiser and Solomon's book it wasn't written up to my knowledge. It probably was but I never heard or read about it until the book came out. When Leiser owned the Rivergate fly shop he had a card set up with different caddis colored dubbing and assorted deerhair. That takes me back a few years.

Gene

[Byron haugh]

Gene: thanks

NJ: I've often "adjusted" flies while on stream, although, more often than not, I will switch patterns.

My experience has been that the most effective (thus generally popular) patterns are available in shops. Just my observation over 45 years or so of fly fishing. Others may have different observations.

[NJTroutbum]

Well, I think you have the pro shop and "most popular" right. But aside from a few local patterns that end up in some shops, the "effective" parts starts to die off. The most effective flies are in the boxes of guides and knowledgable local fishermen. And most of them tie their own. Shop bins get filled with whatever Orvis, Umpqua or the likes has contracted and marketed. Some are very effective patterns proven over time. But I would fall short of saying that what fills proshop bins are the defining patterns for a given water.

[Byron haugh]

I

I find it hard to even believe that Leonard Wright would have allowed that in the book, given that he's probably best remembered for advocating giving his Fluttering Caddis a "sudden inch" of movement. In fact, I sort of believe one of the contributors is directly challenging him on the subject, not LaFontaine, since Caddisflies hadn't been published yet.

As to the importance of caddisflies, I think they're probably just as important as mayflies; it's just that it's easier to tell one mayfly from another at a glance, so we obsess more over them. And of course, it varies from river to river and time to time.

I will point out, however, that just because we use an Elk Hair "Caddis" and catch a bunch of fish, doesn't mean that the fish were taking them as caddis flies. I've had some very memorable evenings fishing an X-caddis over a sulfur hatch/spinner fall. (There's really not much difference between an X-caddis and a Sparkle Dun.) An EHC could reasonably represent a number of different terrestrials (like a small hopper, e.g.) They're pretty generic flies, and caddis are just one thing they can represent.

I do agree with Byron that caddis were under-estimated in the past.

Reidetz,
I finally found it, I believe. Gary published "Challenge of the Trout" I believe it was called....in 1976. His ideas about the importance were in that publication at about the right time to have been one of the ones promoting Caddis flies as referred to by Wright in that quote. Especially since he was sort of a "newcomer" to the field.