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EDUCATION: ONLINE LESSONS:
LESSON 4
The Elk Hair Caddis (dry flies)
from Skip Morris' book, "Fly Tying Made Clear and Simple, 1992"
The word "ingenious" is occasionally used to describe fly patterns. This is usually because the fly has some tying wrinkle that simplifies and improves the fly. By this definition, Al Troth's Elk Hair Caddis is ingenious indeed.
Al found a way to slant the hackle back- a big benefit for a caddis imitation, since these are often twitched and skidded across the surface-and to reinforce the hackle with the same fine wire that secures it.
The Elk Hair Caddis can be fished dead drift, with an occasional twitch, or really made to dance and struggle.
ELK HAIR CADDIS
Hook: Standard dry fly, sizes 18 to 8
Thread: Tan 3/0
Rib: Fine gold wire
Body: Hare's mask dubbing
Hackle: Brown
Wing: Bleached elk hair
The Rib, Body, And Hackle
Begin by sizing a single No.12 dry-fly hackle. Smash the barb on a standard size-12 dry-fly hook (the hook shown is a Tiemco model 100), and mount it in your vise. Start the thread about 1/16 inch behind the eye.
Use a light turn to tie in the wire, and then secure it with tight thread turns. Lift the wire slightly above the shank, under light tension, and spiral the thread down it to the bend. Add a few tight securing thread turns here. Dub the shank fairly heavily up to 1/16 inch behind the eye. If the wire remains on the spool, trim it a few inches from the hook.
Tie in the hackle about 1/8" behind the eye, and then trim its stem. Spiral (palmer) the hackle back to the bend in six to ten turns. When the hackle reaches the bend, hold the hackle pliers up and slightly back from the bend in your left hand. Grasp the wire in your right hand, and make one tight turn over the hackle's tip.
Keep tension on the wire with your right hand as you release the hackle pliers with your left. Add three more turns of wire over the tip, and then spiral the wire forward through the hackle. When the wire reaches a point 1/8 inch behind the eye, tie it off with thread, add a few tight, securing thread turns, and trim the wire. Trim the hackle's tip.
The winding of hackle and wire is all in the standard direction.
The Rib, Body, And Hackle -- Problems, Solutions, And Suggestions
- The gold wire becomes fragile if kinked-and especially fragile if a loop tightens into a knot or fold. So handle the wire carefully.
- It helps to tie the wire off (after it has been wound through the hackle) on top of the hook; this way, the wing will later hide its end.
- If you have trouble with the complications of holding the hackle pliers up as you secure the hackle's tip with the wire, simply let the pliers hang when the hackle reaches the bend; then work the wire around the hanging tip and pliers. The pliers-up method, however, makes for a neater fly and an easier time trimming the hackle's tip later.
The Wing
Snip a small bunch of elk hair from its hide. Hold the hair by its tips as you stroke a comb through it to remove the short hairs and fuzz. That is how you comb hair; any comb with fairly fine teeth will do. Stack the hair in a hair stacker.
Measure the hair against the hook; to do this, set the tips of the hair about 1/8 to 3/16 inch beyond the rear extremity of the hooks bend, and then snip the butts straight across at the tip of the eye. Set the hair bunch on top of the hook with the tips rearward and the trimmed butts at the very rear of the eye.
Tie in the hair bunch here using the pinch. Add several tight securing turns of thread to form a collar. At this point, the tips of the hair should sweep back over the body, and the butts should flare a bit just in front of the thread collar which is just behind the eye. Add a triple whip finish, trim the thread, and add head cement to the collar.
The Wing - Problems, Solutions, And Suggestions
- Check the photographs to determine the proper amount of wing hair.
- A really tight collar is good insurance against having the wing roll and so is a well-executed pinch in which the thumb and finger really keep the hairs on top of the shank.
- Use the pinch more than once if the wing keeps trying to roll around the shank.
- Careful measuring of the wing is important-a stubby or too-long wing makes the Elk Hair Caddis an unconvincing imitation.
1. Tie in gold wire and dub the body.
2. Tie in a dry-fly hackle.
3. Palmer the hackle down the body to the bend.
4. Tie off the hackle's tip with the gold wire.
5. Spiral wire forward through hackle. Secure end of wire with thread turns and trim wire's end.
6. Comb and stack a bunch of elk hair and then measure it against the hook.
7. Hold the hair over the hook and snip it cleanly just in front of the hook's eye.
8. Move the bunch back so that its blunt end is just behind the eye; then tie it in using the pinch.
9. Build a tight thread collar, whip finish and trim thread, and add head cement to thread collar.
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