An afternoon of fishing with a favorite caddis pattern and a book that you won’t want to miss out on!

caddis… they’re out there!

Flipping over a rock On almost any body of water that you fish, Will most likely turn up some cased caddis.

These little guys, or big depending on what size you have found today are the master home builders, they build their houses out of any and everything they can find.

Some made out of pebbles and sand

Others out of little sticks and debris

But either way you look at it when, a caddis decides to head out on a behavioral drift with his buddies,  or comes out of their case to start that rise to the surface.. they make quite the meal for a trout.

Trying to match the hatch to see what pupae to fish? Well Depending on what’s on the inside, your best bet to find out is by opening one up.

This tan caddis I uncased to get a better look

I doing this you can get a good match to what size you should be tying on, and in this case I went with almost a 10.

If you look closely you can see the difference in color from head to tail, and it’s quite noticeable.

And when a tan caddis is on the menu, this is the fly I prefer.

A great staple to have in your fly box

Tan Caddis Jig

Hook: jig size to match the naturals; in my case size 10 down to 16. Smaller than that and I use a different dubbing material

Bead: tungsten to match

Ribbing: copper wire

Body: tan hares blend with squirrel guard hairs mixed in

Thorax: dark brown hares blend with squirrel guard hairs mixed in

(I also tie these two ways, I will also put a strip of holographic tinsel across the back. Tie it in with the wire and bring it forward over the dubbed body, tie it off and then wrap the wire)

They couldn’t turn down those caddis this weekend! gotcha!

This imitations can be fished year round, normally the way I Like to fish them in a normal flow is as an anchor fly, and about a foot and a half up I will tie on a small soft hackle or a mayfly imitation, then high stick through the riffles and lift the rod to swing on the end.

And in low water they can be fished under an indicator all by themselves. This guy here just couldn’t help himself!

Another View of the tan caddis jig

The release!

And while I could sit here and go into great detail about Caddis behavior, you may want to just check out my book review here, for the book below.

Its one you will definitely want to add to your collection!

I hope you will add some different caddis patterns to your fly box and fish them with confidence, because they have yet to let me down!