"The solution to any problem - work, love, money, whatever - is to go fishing and worse the problem, the longer the trip should be." - John Gierach
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We now have over 100 years of fly fishing literature that dissects every aspect of our past time. From Theodore Gordon to Charlie Jenkins to Charles Fox to Ernest Schweibert (the list goes on and on) these flyfishers made some great advances for our sport BUT left some huge omissions and the largest is the lack of study of the Caddis Fly.
These 20th century writers were fixated by the Mayfly, especially the east coast writers who fished in and around the Catskills. They basically were dry fly anglers and May Flies provide anglers with long extended trips down the river while their wings dry. Caddis flies are a different story. They pop out of the surface and say "see ya later". No little flotilla of dainty mayflies here!!! It's a quick ride to the surface and many times with a trout in hot pursuit.
I catch far more trout on caddis imitations than the other offerings that I carry with my DMS Caddis leading the way.
Ken
8 comments:
Don't forget about Gary LaFontaine's "Caddis Flies". A monumental work. The Emergent Sparkle Caddis Pupa one of my favorites.
Agree 100% about Caddis. Personally my two largest Brown Trout on the Farmington both over 20" and one over 24" came on small caddis imitations. One was Partridge and Green and the other on the Iris Caddis and both fished and taken on the swing during a caddis hatch to active feeders. I can still picture that gaping white mouth from the larger fish! Lucky I didn't try to set the hook!
Anonymous,
There is a good writer and flyfisher named Bob Wyatt who wrote a great book entitled WHAT TROUT WANT. In that book he rips up LaFontaine's theory about the nymph creating gas to rise to the surface, hence the "sparkle". Wyatt spent a lot of time trying to find an aquatic entomologist who would would support LaFontaine's theory but couldn't find one!!
Ken
The gas bubble theory may be bunk, but LaFontaine's flies work great. They join a long list of flies that work well in spite of flawed theories underlying their designs.
Dear Ken,
The Catskill Fly Fishing Center & Museum lists Gary LaFontaine in its Fly Fishing Hall of Fame with a description which neatly sidesteps the gas bubble question:
"Gary LaFontaine; author, angler and entomologist published in excess of 100 articles on fly fishing and fly tying in more than a dozen different regional and national publications ... A pioneer in using SCUBA gear for underwater research, he spent many bone-chilling hours observing trout and their insect prey species in their environment. He observed light patterns which reflected from the organisms and discovered that a trilobal polymer filament would, when blended with other materials in small amounts, reproduce these light patterns. Thus, his “Deep Sparkle” and “Sparkle” patterns came in to general usage with stunning results."
The pupal gas bubble controversy aside, LaFontaine's contribution to our understanding of caddisfly entomology was prodigious. Although his sparkle pupa patterns remain staples in every fly shop and catalog, I find them finicky to tie and fragile when fished, rarely surviving more than one or two fish caught. Not my favorites ...
-Mike
Thomas Ames also has a great book on Caddisflies. Jv
Mike and Brendan,
A few years ago I wrote about glueing a brass bead to a bare hook and catching browns on the Swift. Edward Ringwood Hewitt claimed to catch trout on a bare hook! It's not the fly itself but how it is fished that counts.
Ken
A brass bead is a passable egg imitation (orange would probably be even better), and you could do worse than a bare hook trying to imitate a midge larva... as long as you present these "flies" the right way.
I've had many days catching double digits on the emergent sparkle pupa, often targeting rising fish in pressured waters. I have built confidence in that pattern, but I have no doubt another reasonable caddis pupa pattern could catch fish in those situations.
I second the recommendation for the Thomas Ames caddis book... extremely thorough!
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