UV SOFT HACKLE CADDIS PUPA
Materials:
- HOOK: Dai-Riki #135 Scud/Pupa Sizes 12-20
- THREAD: Tan or Camel 8/0
- BEAD: Black, Gold sized to fit hook
- BODY: 50/50 mix Hareline Dark Hare's Ear Krystal Dub and Hareline Ice Dub UV Tan
(use a sparse dubbing loop) - RIB: Fine copper wire
- HACKLE: Hen pheasant (sparse, one turn of hackle)
There is nothing complicated about tying this fly so I'm going to skip the instructions and share my experiences with using it over the past summer.
This fly developed after a tour last summer of Hareline Dubbing and a conversation with Marcos Vergara regarding the fish attracting properties of their UV materials. He referred me to a book titled, The New Scientific Angling - Trout and Ultraviolet Vision. The author does a decent job of presenting the limited scientific evidence regarding UV receptors in trout eyes and in the UV reflective body parts of hatching aquatic insects. There is scientific evidence that the UV spectrum penetrates the water to a greater degree than the rest of the light spectrum. I decided to do my own research and let the trout decide.
Over the course of two summers, I have fished this pattern in tandem with an identical one without UV materials. I tied the UV pattern on as both a trailer and as the lead fly. I fished the combination dead drift and on the swing. In all cases, the UV fly was taken on a ratio of around 3 to 1. The highlight was catching a playing a steelhead on a size 16. I'm not sure whether the fly is more visible or act as a trigger; the trout didn't tell me that.
Other color combinations can be created using UV Ice Dub Pearl, your favorite dubbing, and a coffee grinder.
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