Bodkin / Patterns

October Caddis Stimulator

Dry Fly · Trout · Steelhead · Intermediate · 1 version

Fischer's Flies

  • Hook Fulling Mill FM5155 Tactical Big Bug, long curved shank, 8
  • Thread Fl. fire orange 210D

Materials

  • Tail and wing Orange permanent marker (Nature's Spirit Select Cow Elk)
  • Rib Copper thorax stripe (UTC Ultra Wire, brassie)
  • Body Fl. hot orange material (Fulling Mill Pro Floss 340D)
  • Hackle Furnace hackle (Whiting Farms saddle hackle)
  • Resin Clear uv resin (Solarez Bone Dry UV resin)

How to tie it

  1. Start the 210D fire orange thread at the 70% mark and wrap back to the bend, then stack and tie in a short clump of orange cow elk as a tail no longer than the hook gap. Keep it stubby, a long tail on a big dry drags the back end down.
  2. Tie in the copper brassie wire and the hot orange floss at the bend, then wrap the floss forward in flat, touching turns to the 65% mark for a smooth, glowing abdomen.
  3. Tie in a furnace saddle hackle at the front of the abdomen and palmer it back to the bend in five or six open turns, then counter-wrap the copper wire forward through the hackle to the 65% mark. Wiring against the hackle stem is what stops a trout's teeth unravelling the whole palmer in one fish.
  4. Stack a full clump of orange cow elk and tie it in at the 65% mark as a downwing reaching to the end of the tail, then trim the butts at an angle and bind them down to form the base of the thorax.
  5. Tie in a second furnace hackle at the front of the wing and palmer it densely forward to the eye over the exposed thread thorax. The dense front hackle is the flotation on a fly this size and it needs to be crowded, not spaced.
  6. Whip finish, then wick a small amount of Bone Dry into the wing butts and thread head where a big elk hair wing tends to loosen after a few fish.

Tying videos

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