The ones I tied earlier seemed a little “front heavy” when in the water. The one I bought floats kinda head up, mine are more level head or sink head. Any suggestions?
Well, you may want to consider the hook. It appears to me, mind you I cannot see the hooks in the 2 patterns you link to, side by side, that the first hook is shorter in the shank then the second. Maybe that would make a difference. If your hook is to short it may tip up or down depending on the proportions of the body and hackle. Also, you may need to account for the diameter of the foam. Of course you can always revert back to the ‘original’, the skittering caddis, as tyed by Len Wright: dubbed body and a 3 section hackle wing.
I just saw an article by Gary Borger in FlyTyer and he ties some of his flies with the front of the hook bent up at a 30 degree angle - maybe this would help. The object of this for him is to get the thorax to get down in the film.
What Allen said about the hook could be it. With all the discussions on this board it has been a big difference in how patterns float or sink.
I put the photo’s side by side, now just from the photo’s the
elk hair on the LR one looked longer than charlies and
the foam looked higher off the shank whereas charlies laid back further
But I think a big facter could be the difference in what foam was used. LR says closed cell and the description in charlies says " two by two millimeter strip of black foam".
Hackle - Charlies uses a pair of brown hackle feathers wound at the same time - the LR doesn’t say.
Just my 2 cents from looking at the photo’s and descriptions
Could be how hard you tie the foam and hair down in the front. Really compressing the foam and hair will reduce floatation. Something about hollowness, aircells and the like. Somebody here will know the physics, I just can’t remember.
Looking at Charlie’s SBS, my first thought was, “of course it’s front heavy”…there’s nothing to float the front except the hackle and that won’t float as well as the unsecured foam.