What it is
Al Troth's adult caddis, and the most tied caddis dry in the world for good reason: it is simple, it floats, and its silhouette is the tented wing every adult caddis carries. Caddis live in every Australian trout stream and hatch through the warm months, so the fly earns its place from the Snowy Mountains rivers, where NSW DPIRD's guide lists it in size 12 to 14 for both browns and rainbows, to the Victorian alps, the tableland streams of New England and the fast rivers of Tasmania's north. Its hour is the evening, when the riffles start to boil.
Anatomy
From the bend forward: a slim body of dubbing, tan, olive or grey, running the length of the shank. A body hackle of brown or ginger rooster palmered forward through the dubbing in open turns and locked down with a fine wire rib. A wing of elk hair tied in at the head, lying flat over the body in a tent, its tips reaching the bend. The butts of the elk hair are trimmed short and left standing to form a flared head, which is what makes the fly skate.
Key features
- The tented wing. Adult caddis hold their wings roof-like over the body, and the elk hair gives that shape from below while floating the fly from above.
- The palmered hackle. A hackle along the whole body, not just at the head, floats the fly through riffles and gives it the leggy, skittering footprint of a caddis on the move.
- The flared head. Trimmed elk butts push water when the fly is skated across the current, the movement that draws the savage takes this fly is known for.
- No tail. A real caddis has none, and leaving it off keeps the silhouette honest.
Typical materials
| Part | Typical material |
|---|---|
| Hook | Standard dry-fly hook, size 12 to 16 |
| Thread | 8/0 or 70 denier, tan or olive |
| Body | Fine dubbing, tan, olive or grey; hare's mask on the scruffier ties |
| Body hackle | Brown or ginger rooster, palmered in open turns |
| Rib | Fine gold or copper wire, counter-wound over the hackle |
| Wing | Elk body hair, tented flat, tips to the bend |
| Head | The trimmed elk butts, left flared |
Fishing it
Fish it in the riffles and the heads of runs, not the slow glides. Caddis hatch in moving water and the fish that eat them hold in it. A dead drift works; a skated drift often works better, because a real caddis skitters. Lift the rod tip and let the fly slide across the current a few inches, then drop it. The takes on a skating caddis are savage, so hold the rod lightly.
Dress it with floatant before the first cast and again after every fish. The elk hair wing is the float; once it is waterlogged the fly is a wet. By day, in broken water, it doubles as a searching dry and a dry-dropper top fly when a Stimulator feels too big. When fish are boiling at the caddis and refusing the dry, they are on the pupa under the film; a Klinkhammer is the next fly.
