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.
Mid day temps were around 50F, maybe a bit warmer when the sun was out.
John
P.S. I haven’t really thought it through yet, but I’m thinking the darker rubber legs material might make an interesting substitute for the wire on Copper Johns and Copper Bobs. Not sure the rubber will stand up to a lot of toothy abuse by the fishies, but I wouldn’t really consider that a problem. Also, in the mini size, the rubber legs could be stretched some when wrapped to get really slim bodies on very small midge or trico patterns. It is conceivable that you could do a “threadless” midge just using the rubber legs material. I actually tied an experimental T.N.T. midge larva with .005 clear stretch magic colored with marking pen and fished it a couple weeks ago. Still needs some work. T.N.T. stands for The No Thread midge. Not sure if it will be explosive or a bust.:roll:
P.S. Well, we did have some pretty hard water on and off the past couple months, but open water and decent temps have come around often enough to get out regularly and have some fun.
I like it!! I’ve used “Life Flex” and “Flex Floss” legging material for some bodies on some purple hazes and cripple patterns which makes the fly a bit more durable and adds segmentation with relative ease. You just have to control the tension while tying and you can make a tapered body easily. Oops just gave away some of my favorite patterns, just kiddin, don’t use those.
I’ve also used tan, cream, or sometimes green rubber bands to make similar nymph bodies. The lighter colored rubber bands can be easily colored with permanent magic markers, and they also make killer stonefly nymphs, for example.
Our daily morning newspaper is often delivered with a medium sized rubber band around it that I’ve found is great for this purpose.
Where I fish the ‘case’ is more of a combination of brown/black/tan/white. I bought some embroidery floss in those colors, separated it down to the thinnest fibers, and then spun the four colors together before wrapping to make the ‘case’. Very good imitation.
I know a guide who uses a glued in place wrapping of sandpaper coated with Sallys…
Okay this is my first attempt; rubber leg material mixed with Fabric Fusion and troweled onto a siz 14 nymph hook. Head and thorax dark brown and brightest green dubbing I had. Leg hackle barbs. Suggestions welcomed.
That’s actually what I was trying to achieve, and did with a couple of the initial batch of flies. The one pictured had much less white at the vice. Not sure what happened while it was being fished. I’ve noticed that the barring does tend to wear when handled - perhaps that explains it. Also, there was a fair amount of dark brown marking pen applied to the white and perhaps it didn’t really take. But the fly did catch fish - and as we know, it’s all in the presentation, right ??
Thanks to all for the suggestions. And to Jesse for the pix of his first efforts.
John
P.S. Jake - I was looking at some Flex Floss on the tying desk as I was working with the rubber legs material. Didn’t have a color out that would work in the cased caddis pattern. But it, and you, got me thinking about some other nymph applications.
I like that caddis.
For what little it’s worth, I have used rubberlegs for body material too, like the following Sandy’s Mite:
But it never occurred to me to use it like an over-ribbing, like you did.
Those little caddis larvae do appear in trout stomachs. A lot.
I think they’re an under-utilized resource.
I remembered this fly when I got to thinking about a cased caddis pattern - but I didn’t have the right size and color dirt / sand / gravel on the tying bench.
I am not sure I could be the moral compass on a question like that when it comes to fishing. A picture is worth a thousand words but I prefer to use my own.
That was my problem, so I “manufactured” some “dirt” by chopping up some round rubber I had for legs. I was going to get some real dirt from the Hooch yesterday but it has rained and lightning all day.
I was fishing in north central Idaho a few years back and needed to tie up some small yellow stones (The hot fly from the previous day) and used yellow rubber leg for the body of a copper john like fly in camp. It held up well for the day’s fishing. I don’t seem to recall it falling apart from catching fish but as I read your post I thought a base of super glue before wrapping the body might improve durability.
