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Mesilla Valley Flyfishers, Inc.

Las Cruces, New Mexico


Flys & Fly Tying

From the desk of Norm Mabie, MVFF


Micro Caddis (caddis adult)
Although this Caddis has been hatching on the Penasco and Ruidoso rivers for many years, it has been overlooked or ignored by the flyfishing community until recently. Now that their use has been productive, it seems appropriate that they be included in our Fly of the Month series. They seem to prefer resting in the streamside vegetation and are readily accessible for inspection at that time. I have noticed great concentrations of these insects in the vegetation at streamside indicating that they crawl uup the sticks and plant stems to hatch. The top side color of the insect will appear black, but the underside color that we are interested in is charcoal or medium dun. The dun colored wings are about twice the length of the body. They should remain prevalent through the summer months, so it might be advisable to include a few in your flybox.

This fly is fished in the usual dry fly fashion, but as is the case with most Caddis patterns, it may also be fished subsurface on a dead drift on down and across Sawyer method while occasionally raising and lowering the rod tip to simulate hatching/egg laying activity. Use of a strike indicator is encouraged regardless of how the fly is fished.

Materials
Hook Mustad 94840, Size 18; Tiemco 100, Size 20
Thread Black, Sizes 6/0 or 8/0
Tail Dark Dun Hackle fibers; Dun Yearling Elk;
Dun Texas Whitetail; Dun Elk Hock
Body Charcoal Dubbing
Downing Same material choices as tail
Hackle Medium to Dark Dun Neck or Hoffman Saddle Hackle
Tying Instructions
1. Properly place the hook in the vise jaws. Apply thread behind the hook eye and wrap thread in fairly tight wraps back to the bend of the hook. Cut off excess thread.

2. Tie in about six fibers of the tail material. Advance the thread toward the eye a short distance. Form a four inch dubbing loop, insert your dubbing twister, wax one side of this loop with dubbing wax and place a very small amount of dubbing material on the waxed side of the loop.

3. Tightly twist the dubbing until it is securely held in the loop, attach hackle pliers at the end of the dubbing twister tool, then wrap the dubbing forward to the 2/3 hook hank position. Clip off the excess dubbing.

Troth Elk Hair Caddis

Diving/Emerger Caddis Beadhead (Wet)

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