Hook: Dai-Riki #305 14
Thread: Serafil 200 tan or Uni 6/0-8/0
Rib: tag end of thread
Abdomen: DK #14 Spruce Moth dubbing or light tan
Palmered hackle: honey or light ginger rooster, palmered front to back, trapped with tag end thread ribbed to eye, clipped short on top and bottom.
Wing: 2 Salmon Favorelle hen chicken feathers (very light ginger), or buff pheasant feathers, tied in flat one on top of the other, 1 gape length longer than hook, tied behind eye then folded over to form head and whip finished. Varnish the head and 1/3 of the wing.
Thanks Scott - I’ve also attached a link to the Korn’s Spent Wing Caddis at the bottom of the post… It’s tied the same way but with caddis tan or olive dubbing and natural colored hen pheasant wings. Cheers…
Best thing, for me, about the video was how you finished the head - I had tied the wing feathers in first, having them point out over the hook eye, then folded them back over the body to finish. It was a bit awkward, to say the least and I couldn’t always get the “bump” for the head to turn out right:
Yep, when you tie the wings on you want to have just the right amount of wing material forward of the tie in point (like in the video) over the eye, so that when you fold them back they form a nice head… Have fun.
Thanks Doug. Great video and great fly. If one doesn’t have your dubbing in that color, would a pearly white ice dubbing work?
Thanks again,
Byron
Oh, and I want to ask a question I am a little bit embarrassed to ask, but here goes: Is the Spruce Moth the same as the “iris Caddis”? I think there is a difference between moths and caddis. I think, though, that they are related.
Are the two terms used interchangeably - whether correct or not?
Byron, pearly white with just a touch of ginger or tan would work…
Caddis flies and Spruce Moths are two different critters. Spruce Moths are terrestrials and are not born/hatched in the creek like caddis flies.
Can an Iris Caddis fly tied with a light tan/ginger body be taken by a trout for a Spruce Moth? Sure… but probably not as consistently as the Spruce Moth pattern.
Like I said in the video, when the fish are keyed in on the Spruce Moths they get real fussy and if you don’t have a good imitation you could be doing lots of fishing and very little catching.
Heaviest emergence I ever saw was a few years ago on a small Yellowstone trib. I had fished the same stream the previous year and had a blast catching a bunch of cutt-bows on a peacock foam-back Convertible. This time I barely got a sniff on the Convertible with all the spruce moths on the water (the few fish I caught looked like they had bellied up to the buffet more than once), and switching to a tan EHC didn’t do a whole lot better; not sure if they were being picky or just had too much of a good thing, but I definitely want some of these (and Wally’s Widow Spruce Moth) in the box next time.
Right on brother… even if nothing is going on on top but you have spruce trees lining the creek bank, I drag a spruce moth as a dropper. Once the fish see these bugs they start looking for them and when one falls in they go for it… if that happens to be your fly… Bingo! I fish them when ever the wind is blowing (almost every afternoon in Yellowstone Country) and I’m near some spruce trees.
… takes place over a relatively short time ( mid-July, at the earliest, and usually starting in August through the end of August or shortly thereafter ) in a limited number of places.
For those of us who fish the West year round, every month of the year, in a variety of locations, Spruce Moth patterns would be excess baggage most of the time, and quite possibly all the time. For example, fishing 125-135 days a year in Montana and Idaho, I’ve never tied, left home with, and fished a Spruce Moth pattern.
[i]Not saying that Spruce Moths don’t make for an interesting fly angling experience in places where they are available to trout, and not saying that Doug’s pattern and your flies aren’t really good examples of flies that will fish well in those places for a short time in the summer - just saying that hyping it to be a year around fly for the entire West is a bit much.
[/i]John
P.S. There was an article recently in one of the fly fishing magazines on the subject of spruce moths. By a well known angler from Ennis MT. It is a good article and well worth reading. I know from the local people that Rock Creek and the Blackfoot and the West Fork of the Bitterroot are properly included in a list of places to fish the spruce moth hatch.
However, I found it interesting that the author included the Lochsa as one of the places where spruce moths make for a fishable hatch. I fished that river 20 to 30 days this summer during the period he says there would be a spruce moth hatch there - and have never seen a single spruce moth. ( Maybe I missed them ?? ) That makes me wonder how many of the other rivers listed actually have the hatch. But I guess the longer the list of rivers, the more believable the hype.
? Huh? I didn’t say that and Doug certainly didn’t say that. I think it’s a cool fly and I can’t wait to fish it. You don’t want to; fine, your choice. Fish how you want but don’t put down others because they don’t fish the way you do.
This is the same kind of stuff you pulled when questioning Kelly Glissmeyer’s definition of “gale force wind”.
Didn’t appreciate it then and don’t care for your condescension towards Doug now. Last time I looked you were not the conscience of the flyfishing community; if that’s the case I missed the notice (and would have ignored it anyway).
John, man you’ve got to ease up a bit… “if you’re going to fish out west - don’t leave home without them” was just a play on words from the American Express Commercials… Yes, they are effective in those ares “where” they have spruce moths and “when” they are available to the fish. I would think that would be obvious. I was not advocating that they work everywhere, all the time, year round… I think I made the point in the video and elsewhere that when the fish are on them they are on them… and that’s when the fly comes in handy to have in your box… Remember, most people who come to fish the Yellowstone Greater area come in July and August and into early September… when these moths can be available.
Now, I’m in a quandary. I’m leaving tonight for the Yellowstone Area. I have tied a few Spruce Moths ( not as nice as Doug’s) because I was instructed not to leave home without them. Can I leave or should I dispose of them?
Just kidding of course
I know of a stretch along the Firehole where I may well see some. Maybe not this late, but better safe than sorry
I just read this thread that was recently referenced in another, more current, thread and saw that no one apparently responded to your question about whether you should take spruce moths imitations with you when you went to the Yellowstone area in the middle of September 2012.
Well, did you take them with you and use them?
By the way, we had tremendous fishing to spruce moths last summer in the greater Yellowstone area in mid-to-late July. It was a warmer and drier last summer than normal, and I think the major activity and pretty much subsided by early August, but when the peak of the spruce moth activity occurred, the fishing to spruce moth patterns was pretty incredible.
I’ll not soon forget fishing spruce moths one evening on a small Yellowstone tributary with my 12 year old grandson, and he caught 5 or 6 cutthroat (2 of which were in the 16-17" range) on almost as many casts, in not more than a blink of the eye.
Nor will I forget catching nearly 100 trout from another nearby stream one morning in a couple hours a few days later.
I recently canceled my 2 American Express credit cards that I used to carry with me while traveling and fishing in Montana. However, no big loss since many merchants don’t accept them anyway. However, trout are more than willing to accept a well placed spruce moth pattern when these insects are on the water (and maybe even when they’re not).
Personally, I’m going to have an ample supply of spruce moth patterns in my box when I go fishing there again this summer.
Nicely done; spruce moths are one of the great non-hatch hatches in the area. Wish they weren’t such a blight to the forests, though.
I took the advice of one of the folks on this forum and fished a little blue line full of cutt-bows that couldn’t get enough of a spruce moth pattern ( actually all I had were some Elk Hair Caddis at the time but the fish didn’t care). Next time I hit the stream I could barely manage a strike, even though the bugs were everywhere. When I finally caught one I could see it had a belly like Jabba the Hut; I think it was literally stuffed to the gills.
