Body Cinnamon (Fischer's Flies Perfect Blend Dubbing)
Wing Orange material (Nature's Spirit Select Cow Elk)
Head Cinnamon (Fischer's Flies Perfect Blend Dubbing)
Resin Clear resin (Solarez Bone Dry)
How to tie it
Start the brown 70 denier behind the eye and lay a smooth base back to the bend of the Superdry hook.
Dub a full, slightly shaggy cinnamon body forward to the 70% mark. October caddis are large, heavy-bodied insects, so keep this fat rather than slim. The shagginess also traps air and does the floating work that a hackle would normally do.
Clean, stack and measure a clump of orange cow elk so the tips end just past the bend, and tie it in at the 70% mark with two soft collecting wraps followed by tight ones. There is no hackle on this fly, so the flared elk is the only thing holding it up: let it splay evenly around the top half rather than pinching it to the top.
Trim the elk butts square right at the front of the wing, leaving a clean stub rather than a long taper.
Dub over the trimmed butts with the same cinnamon blend, working forward to just short of the eye, to build a dense head. This hides the stubs, adds buoyancy exactly where a hackleless caddis needs it, and gives the fly the blunt-headed look of the natural.
Whip finish behind the eye and put a drop of Solarez Bone Dry on the thread head only, resin in the elk or the dubbing kills the float.