CDC&ELK

R

redhotchilipepper

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Nov 28, 2007
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Has anyone tied or fished this pattern? Was just reading about it and it looks easy to tie and sounds like it would be good alternative to the Elk Hair Caddis. I know a lot of articles and info comes from western sources.

Tim
 
I've fished the CDC caddis. They seem to work just as good as a regular EHC. Give them a try and let us know how you do.
 
It fishes basically the same as a plain Elk hair caddis except you can't use floatant on it. Other than that I honestly notice no difference. Now using just CDC I've noticed that the body of the fly lays a lot lower on the surface and I've always prefered using this pattern over a plain Elk but that might just be because I had a lot of success with it when I first started and it was hard to switch to anything else.
 
Ian tied it for our last swap.

It's a good fly.

For those that don't know, it's a palmered cdc feather for a body with an elk downwing.

http://www.danica.com/flytier/hweilenmann/cdcelk.htm There's the story, straight from the creator.
 
Do most shops carry the "Type 1" feathers?
 
I would think that most shops would carry the type I feather, along with the type 4. If I get a pack from Hareline it has both in the baggy.
The expensive feathers are the oiler puffs. I have a couple packs of them and becuase of the price don't use them too often. I paid $2.40 for about 2 dozen puffs.
 
IMHO, the CDC&Elk is a flatwater pattern, only. So to compare it to the Elk Hair Caddis is a little off, only because you would fish it in different places and in different ways. I wouldn't skitter the CDC&Elk for instance, and it would get swamped in a riffle more quickly that an Elk Hair Caddis. So I guess I would say that both could be at home in your flybox.
 
I've been fishing the CDC and Elk for about 10 years now, and its caught fish for me through out the Northeast and on the Grand and Upper Credit Rivers in Ontario. In any given year it accounts for over half the trout I catch and is pretty much the only caddis dry I carry in my box. Now I disagree with Padric about it being a flat water fly. I fish it in fast water/riffle water, and I'll skitter it as it crosses the current at the end of a drift. One reason might be is that mine is not tied as sparse as Hans ties his. Even if it does sink, it's not a bad subsurface pattern. At the end of most drifts, if it sinks I'll strip it back to me.
Hans can afford to be fussy about what type of CDC he uses to tie the pattern. I get the impression that the quality of CDC available in Europe is a lot better than what we see over here. I use whatever feather I pull out of the bag as long as it matches the size that I'm tying.
I'll treat the deer hair with WaterShed on some CDC and Elks and, to be honest, where I wasn't careful enough, and it got into the CDC once it dried it didn't seem to have any impact on the CDC.
If you haven't tried it, give it a try, it's a quick easy tie and very effective. With the colors of CDC now available you can match just about any caddis hatch you'll run into around here. The only one I can't match with it is the Little Black Caddis. I use a CDC and CDC to match that one.
 
On smaller caddis, I actually use deer, not elk. I brought this disparity up to HansW one day and he grinned in a manner that suggests that the name of this fly might be a practical joke those sophisticated Europeans played on us unsuspecting 'Merkins.

:hammer:
tl
les
 
Les. That could be. Even when he first mentioned it in the old Virtual Fly Shop chat room it was tied with deer hair, and I've never seen him tie it with elk hair. I've tried tying it with elk hair a couple of times and did a few with antelope, but have always gone back to deer hair. If I'm going to use an alternative wing material for the fly, it would be snowshoe hare.
 
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