Mission Caddis accomplished

Having finished a SBS for the missing piece, pupa, I finally completed a project of Step By Step tying sequences for all three major life cycle imitations of the Caddis Fly. All three are on my new SBS page.

The nymph - CZ Nymph in 10 easy steps

The pupa - Caddis pupa in 10 easy steps

The adult - CDC Caddis in 10 easy steps

Barbie Power

The going was slow on the Jizera river  - a very welcome cold front brought some rain and respite from recent period of tropical heat and drought, but left the fish feeling somewhat sluggish and the water high and colored. A small hatch of pale wateries was going on, but my imitations produced no takes.

Out of desperation I tried my Barbie Dun fly, which I tied this winter more as a curiosity than a seriously meant fishing fly - only to be surprised by the number and viciousness of strikes it generated.

The intended target of this fly were the grayling. The Ladies of the Stream are well known to have soft spot for the color pink and it did entice a few - but to my surprise the fly took many a brown trout as well. Why should any self respecting and manly trout care for this thing is beyond my understanding (perhaps they felt a duty to obliterate such a pink abdomination) but who am I to argue with them? :-)

The dressing is described on my February post

Step by Step Patterns

Over the time I published a couple of Step by Step tying instructions on various internet forums. I decided to to put them on my blog pages; with this in mind I created a new Step by Step page.

At this time the list consists of a Czech nymph, Hawthorn fly and CDC Loop Caddis - with of course hope for more to come in future :-)

The Olive Otter

The Otter underfur with guard hairs removed makes some very fine dubbing for dry flies, with natural water resistant ability. Very handy for small summer mayflies.

The tie:
#18 Hanák 130BL hook
white UNI 17/0 thread
3 strands of orange Flashabou
2 smallish CDC feathers
Olive Otter dubbing

Into the West...

The westernmost part of the Czech Republic is a troubled country - since time immemorial inhabited by ethnic Germans, who were expelled in the aftermath of WWII it was for 40 years a no entry zone due to its proximity to Western Germany. History left many scars in the countryside, but an interesting side effect was that the  isolation resulted in some fabulous trout fishing.

For this weekend I received invitation from my friend Rosťa, who besides having an interesting job as a moulder of lava in basalt foundry is a first class fisherman of small streams and a veritable font of knowledge of the west country rivers. I have agreed not to delve too deeply into the details of the rivers we fished, but a couple of pics should be OK.

Rosťa is a terror on the small streams, in part helped by his unusual fly rod - an ancient 7 and 1/2 foot Cortland fiberglass rod rated AFTMA 6/7. The heavy line loads his wimpy rod easily allowing for hellishly accurate casts, while the short length leaves lots of room for manoeuvrings under the overhanging foliage.

Rosťa gave me a grade C for my fishing - I got positive points for tying flies that fish liked, but negative for not having sufficiently mastered the arcane art of jungle casting. I took it as an overall compliment :-)

We successfully pursued a number of indigenous brown trout and grayling and introduced rainbows and brook trout. The rainbows and brookies don't spawn naturally in our rivers, but over here they were stocked as fingerlings and left to grow naturally to perfect condition - not like the malformed sickly stockies so common in the rest of the country.

Aphid fly

This Saturday I came to an unusual situation on my favorite stillwater: the expected buzzer hatch did not materialize - I suspect sudden change in air pressure, accompanied by drop in temperature of about 15°C was to blame - but some fish never the less were rising. No insect activity was apparent and the fish ignored all my flies: both dark and pale mayflies, caddis flies, beetles and daddy long legs I kept changing in my increasing desperation.

I finally succeeded in provoking a couple rainbows to attack a red & white lure; autopsy showed that the cause of the rises was a fall of rather large aphids, which were carried by wind from surrounding aspen trees. Until then I had no aphid in my fly box, a sad fact I set today to rectify.

The tie:
#20 Hanák 130BL hook (a #22 or #24 hook would be even better, this was the smallest I had)
green Hends body thread for the body
2 layers of lacquer (the buoyant kind, not epoxy)
tip of a CDC feather
17/0 white UNI Trico thread
a light touch of black CD marker

Summer Olive Dun

Soon it will be time when the Mayfly and Caddis hatches (and hopefully the awfully cold & rainy weather that confined me to the tying table for the weekend) give way to the small pale olives of summer. To this purpose my today's creation: The Summer Olive

The tie:
#18 Hanák 130BL hook
tan UNI 8/0 thread for thorax and head
yellow Hends Grall thread for abdomen
Mole fur dubbing
two smallish CDC feathers