Elk Hair Caddis

Dry fly imitating caddis, for trout and grayling. Intermediate. Al Troth, 1957.

A buoyant searching caddis: a slim dubbed body, a palmered hackle held down by a gold wire rib, and a flared elk hair wing.

Materials

Steps

  1. Attach thread Attach the thread at 85% of the way along the shank with a few turns and trim the tag end.
  2. Wrap thread Wrap the thread to the start of the bend in touching turns.
  3. Tie in: gold wire Tie in the gold wire with a few firm thread turns.
  4. Dub: tan dry fly dubbing Twist a thin noodle of tan dry fly dubbing onto the thread and wrap it forward to 75% of the way along the shank. Keep the body slim, with a slight taper towards the front.
  5. Tie in: brown cock hackle Tie in the brown cock hackle with a few firm thread turns. Tie it in by the butt, shiny side forward.
  6. Palmer: brown cock hackle Palmer the brown cock hackle back to 5% of the way along the shank in 5 open turns. Hold the tip with hackle pliers at the bend.
  7. Wind: gold wire Wind the gold wire forward to 75% of the way along the shank in 5 turns through the brown cock hackle. The first turn traps its tip. Wiggle the wire as you go so no fibres are trapped.
  8. Tie off: gold wire Tie off the gold wire with a few thread turns and trim the excess.
  9. Trim: brown cock hackle Trim the tip of the brown cock hackle close to the body.
  10. Tie in: bleached elk hair Tie in a bunch of bleached elk hair so the tips reach just past the end of the bend (2.3× the gape from the tie-in point), angled about 27° up from the shank. Let it flare out round the sides of the body. Clean the underfur out and stack the hair so the tips are even.
  11. Trim: bleached elk hair Trim the butts of the bleached elk hair, leaving a short head 0.25× the gape long. Cut straight across, parallel to the eye.
  12. Whip finish Form a small head, whip finish with 5 turns and cut the thread. Whip finish behind the trimmed butts.

History

Al Troth tied the first Elk Hair Caddis in 1957 for the green caddis on his home streams in Pennsylvania, and first fished it on Loyalsock Creek; he moved to Montana in 1973. He set out to make a wet fly, but it floated so well that he fished it dry. He used bleached elk hair so that the wing would be easier to see. The neatly trimmed head that most tyers now give it was added by others; see the Troth variant for his own way.

Fishing it

A searching pattern for any water where caddis hatch, riffles and runs included: the hair wing and palmered hackle float it high. It is mostly fished on a dead drift; skating it, or pulling it through the film like a caddis hatching, works too.

Sources