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This fly is also often referred to as an "Elk Hair Emerger".

When a caddis fly hatches it rises to the surface of the water, shedding its nest and shuck as it breaks through the surface tension of the water so as to reveal its wings. Caddis flies often use surface movement caused by wind and currents to assist in this process.  Fortunately they break through the surface quickly. Some times they appear to be able to fly straight away without waiting more than a moment for their wings to dry and more often than not you will see trout “porpoise” out of the water to take these quickly emerging Caddis flies. Other times they break through the surface and unable to fly make a dash for the bank and cover , skating across the surface  creating a a tell tail wake that trout home in on. Often you will find that the timing of a hatch a coincide with warmer evenings with just a little breeze. These conditions help the nymph shed its nest and shuck and allow the wings to dry quickly.

The Caddis fly spends its adult imago life as a terrestrial insect and finally returns to the water on mass to lay its eggs. The male fertilises the female above the water and then the females’ dance on the surface of the water laying individual eggs that sink to the bottom. This is a real turn on for trout and you will often find large numbers of fish aggressive feeding on both the egg laying female Caddis fly as well as spent adults.

Tied in various sizes and colours the Elk Hair Caddis is a good representation for a range of emerging, egg laying and spent Caddis flies.

Available on line – just $2 each fly tied on quality barbless hooks.

Common configurations:

Snow flake caddis #14 - #16 Off white body and natural deer hair.
Yellow stick caddis #10 - #14 Dark brown body and natural deer hair.
Green stick caddis #10 - #14 Olive body and natural deer hair.
Sand caddis #14 - #16 Black body and natural deer hair.

Materials

Process

A	Starting at the 95% position wind the thread in touching turns to the bend of the hook. Understanding hooks Tie in the ribbing material at the bend of the hook. This will later be used to rib the fly and lock in the palmered hackle. My preference is a length of thread the same colour as the body dubbing.

B	Dub on a plumpish cigar shaped body along the back 2/3 of the hook shank. Single strand dubbing Tie in a hackle by the but end. Dry fly hackle

C	Palmer the hackle back along the length of the body. Palmering hackles Whilst holding the palmered hackle in your left hand place pick up the ribbing material with your right hand and wind it along the body of the fly holding the hackle in place and forming 4 or five ribs. Tie the ribbing material off. Body segments on flies

D	Trim both the ribbing material and the hackle off with a sharp blade rather than a pair of scissors so as to ensure that you don't accidentally clip hackle barbules that you should retain. I like also to trim the leading hackle on the top of the hook shank so that there not there to interfere with the wing.

E	Select a bunch of deer hair and stack it in a "deer hair stacker" so that all of the tips are together. This is important because the deer hair is the wing of the fly and as such can only look like a wing if the tips of the deer hair are relatively uniform and the wing finishes up wedge shaped. Deer hair in fly tying Take the deer hair out of the stacker with your left hand by gripping the tips of the stacked deer hair. Transfer the stacked deer hair to your  right hand, bunching it up into a tight mass as you do, and carefully hold the tight mass of hair along the top of the hook shank at the tie in position. The tips of the stacked deer hair should be positioned above the back of the hook.

F	If you not happy with the length of the hair, can see that the tips of the hair are uneven or that the hair is in the wrong position go back to the previous step. Without moving the tight mass of deer hair swap your grip from the right hand to the left hand. Get used to sliding the thumb and fore finger of the left hand onto the material to be tied in and the shank of the hook ready to undertake a fly tiers pinch.

G	The tied in wing should now look like this.

H	Hold the butt ends of the deer hair wing up with your left hand and build up a neat head of thread. Whip finish and varnish that head.

I	Trim the butt ends in line with the middle of the eye of the hook.

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