Barry Ord Clarke
Cased Caddis larva - Step by Step

This is one of the most important food stuffs of trout all over the world. The house building caddis is the larval stage of several caddis flies.

The name caddis can be traced back as far as 1611 in William Shakespears "The Winters Tale", Cadysses Men, these where street traders that sold cloth. In order to display them as they walked around the streets. These small larva spend a whole year in the water before hatching and to protect their soft vulnerable bodies they construct cases around them for protection and camouflage. The materials they use for this are normally the most commonly found in the area of the water of which they live, ie; sand, small stones, twigs, reeds, etc. I have even heard of a particular place in Derbyshire on the river Wye where the river passes by an engineering workshop. Here the caddis use the small surplus turns of aluminium as pre-fab Robo-cases.
This is a pattern that imitates the twig or reed building type, that has proved succesful in both running and still water. I was first introduced to this pattern by the Swedish fly tyer Lennart Bergqvist.

 

	Hook: Partridge J1A 14-6 (weighted full length of shank with lead free wire) Thread: Black 8/0 Body: Spun hares ear dubbing Hackle: Cock saddle Collar: Golden Olive dubbing Head: Black varnish
	1. Run tying thread along the whole length of the hook shank until you come level with the hook barb. Wind a short length of wire along the hook shank to weight the fly. You can the make several turns of tying thread over the wire to hold it in place.
	2. Select a cock saddle hackle of chosen coloured, then by holding the hackle tip between your finger and thumb of your left hand brush the hackle fibres backwards against their natural direction, so that they stand at right angles to the feather shaft. Now take a pair of lonish bladed scissors and trim each side of the hackle fibres as shown. Not evenly.
	3. Tie in the trimmed hackle at the tail of the fly hook.
	4-5. Make a dubbing loop from hares ear dubbing and cover the whole hook shank with this leaving only 4mm or so behind the eye of the hook for finishing.
	6. Now wind your hackle "Palmer style" along the full length of the body as shown. Not too tight.
	7. After you have tied off your hackle you can dub the collar with a little golden olive dubbing and whiop finish and varnish to finish.
	8. Gold Ribbed Hare's Ear. Replace the hackle with gold wire, and you get this classic nymph.

(c) photographs and text  Barry Ord Clarke