Commissioned illustration by award winning water colorist Thom Glace. Rainbow [Yellow Breeches, Pennsylvania].
Caddis’ are 24/7/365 everywhere
By Skip Clement
A fly-tying guru of mine and Angie Roth’s, William Trudeau, a Canadian [no relation to the Prime Minister], visited for a week. Before the rains came here in North Georgia, we had two days of superior trout fishing on the ‘Hootch’ [Chattahoochee River] because it was absent of fellow anglers and water sport activity; too cold and mid-week.
William showed us a fly he has been tying for decades called Caddis Clump. He said he found a YouTube video by a UK tyer calling it Deadly Peacock Caddis – Deer/Elk Hair. William said there are dozens of Peacock Caddis’ patterns adding that it was Jim Bonnett of Montana that created it in 1980.
He said that sticking to the exact recipe and assemblage has a lot to do with its acceptance by the freshwater Salmonidae. Anyway, long and short, we all managed nice rainbows fishing this caddis mimic featured in today’s video. Angie’s 26″ and 24″ Oncorhynchus mykiss’ took home the gold both days.
NOTE:
Most hook-ups occurred without any evidence of visible hatch activity.
Watch the Deadly Peacock Caddis – Deer/Elk Hair take shape . . .
NOTE: Here are two other videos tying the Peacock Caddis [dozens more], one by Tim Flagler, and another by Savage Flies.
NOTE 2: A few flies that I tied got critiqued by William. He said the heads appeared to be separated from the body and tied on too big a hook, #8. The Peacock Caddis is best on #12 to #18 hooks. However, since I had tied four of them, I fished one of them anyway. No takes on about 6/7 casts and moving forward one step per cast – English spey style.
