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| Fly recipe Hook: Dry Fly Hook (Dai Riki 300 or 305) Size: 12-18 Thread: 6/0 or 8/0 Uni Thread Body: Dry Fly Dubbing or Peacock Wing: Elk Hair Hackle: Grizzly or Brown Dry Fly Hackle Rib: X-Fine Wire or Mono Tying instructions: Step 1: Secure your hook in the vise and attach the thread to the hook. Step 2: Take your thread to the back of the hook and tie in your ribbing, once the ribbing is secure it is time to tie in the peacock, or apply the dubbing to your thread. If you are dubbing you want your body shape to taper like a cigar, thin on the ends and a tad bit thicker in the middle. Step 3: Bring the peacock herl or dub forward leaving roughly 1/5 of the hook open to tie in your elk hair. Step 4: The next step is to take a either a hackle from a dry fly neck or a good dry fly saddle and remove several of the fibers at the base of the hackle stem. I like to strip the barbs off to expose a small portion of the stem so you can tie it in easier. Always size the hackle to the size of your hook and fly, over or undersizing the hackle will result in goofy looking bugs that don't float as well. Step 5: Now palmer the hackle back along the dubbing or peacock herl until you reach the point at which your wire is tied in and then begin reversing the wire over the top of the hackle, making sure not to mash down the hackle, this is what will provide flotation along with the elk hair. Trim the hackle off and wiggle off your wire. Step 6: Now you are going to cut off a chunk of elk or deer hair, preferably elk as it is much stiffer and floats better and is the traditional way to tie an "elk hair" caddis. Step 7: Before tying in the hair it is necessary to remove the underhair from the elk, this can be achieved by using either your fingers, or more preferably a hair comb. Once you have removed the underfur you can now stack the hair by planting the tips downward into your stacker and tapping it against the table until all of the tips are evened out. Step 8: Now size the hairs such that the tips extend just slightly over the back of your dubbing or peacock herl, not much at all, just a wee bit…(I know, technical terms). You are then going to use the soft loop technique to fasten the hair onto the hook, I like to use about 4 to 5 wraps right on top of one another to secure the elk hair to the hook. Step 9: Trim off the rest of the errant hairs such that you have a small head of hair in front of your thread wraps and the tips extending off the back. Step 10: Finally, tie underneath the head on the front of the hook, as flush as possible to hide the wraps underneath the elk hair and whip finish and apply head cement. Trim off the thread and if you prefer add some WaterShed or another floatant product to aid in the floatation Notes: The Elk Hair Caddis is another one of the staple flies that no angler should be without no matter where you are going. I have tied some extremely complicated and involved patterns in lieu of the elk hair, and sometime this pattern just outperforms and outfishes anything else in my box. Plus they are easy to tie… substitute colors and materials on the dubbing if you like to "match the hatch" tie it in a size 8 or 10 in tan for the "spruce moth" hatch on the Gallatin, or switch it up and add some antron on top of the elk hair to create a hi-viz elk hair caddis. The possibilities are endless…. |
