Tan Caddis

[troutbert]

The Tan Caddis (Hydropsyche) are hatching. They started about 3 weeks earlier than usual.

They are size 16. They have a tan body, but also sometimes greenish, which are probably the females carrying eggs.

The wings are sort of a medium mottled brown.

They are very widely distributed. Most of the medium to larger limestone influenced streams have them. Streams with some organic enrichment, such as sewage plants, tend to have a lot of them.

I don't have any photos. Just have some size 16 caddis patterns with tan bodies in your fly box.

 

[Foxgap239]

Thanks for the info Dwight. As always timely and helpful!

 

[littlelehigh]

Thanks Dwight.

Last weekend while fishing over this hatch I couldn't get a look on any of my tan patterns I've had success with. I'd like to see some of y'alls favorite tan caddis patterns.

I thought some I saw had a reddish, rusty tan body with molted wings.

 

[govtmule]

use a soft hackle

 

[delfam]

I've always had success with a Tan Emergent Sparkle Pupa. Whenever things are hatching i usually always through out emergers and have pretty good success.

 

[troutbert]

A lot of Elk Hair Caddis patterns are too big and too heavily hackled.

Size is too big for tan caddis. Size 16 is about right and even on #16 hooks, they should not be too heavily dressed.

While heavily hackled flies work great on broken, riffly waters on mountain streams, if you're fishing flatter, slower water, for heavily pressured fish, the fly shouldn't be bushy.

You can just have a few wraps of a smallish fibered hackle towards the front of the fly, rather than palmering the whole length of the body.

Caddis look big when they are flying. But if you look at them at rest, they look much smaller.

 

[JackM]

Well, I enjoying throwing verbal wrenches into well-reasoned advice, but I find trout unable to distinguish size if it is off one hook size up or down.

When I encounter a hatch, I always try to find a variety of flies that approximate the natural I am observing. Sometimes the "right" size isn't the one that gets the strike. You also have "performance issues," such as how high or low the fly rides (if a dry), how the naturals are behaving (skitter or dead-drift, etc.), and whether the fish, or the particular fish you are tossing to, have settled on a certain key-- maybe size, maybe shape or posture or action-- or are randomly selecting naturals according to a feeding "rhythm."

I like a caddis pattern in approximate color and size that can be pullled under and "popped" to the surface when you are in the strike zone. The "emergent" form of LaFontaine-ish caddis wets can work this way, with a little grease on the short-wing, but also the non-palmered elk/dear hair caddis. Other times, if the heavily palmered one is working, I find it way easier to keep track of and keep floating, so I will favor these if they are working often enough to satisfy me.

 

[outsider]

JackM wrote:

"I like a caddis pattern in approximate color and size that can be pullled under and "popped" to the surface when you are in the strike zone."

One of my favorite methods used to induce a strike during a caddis hatch! Works well with cdc tied with a thick full wing.