Elk Hair Caddis

[Phil Lilley]

Hook: TMC 100 #12-16

Thread : Uni-thread 6/0 Tan

Body: Dubbing (Superfine)

Hackle: Brown Rooster Neck

Wing: Natural Elk hair

TYING INSTRUCTION

Tie in the hackle where the dull side is facing you. One thing I will mention when doing this step is to not peel the hackle barbs to where you are only grabbing the stem when tying on the shank. If you do this you might have a problem with the feather twisting to the underside or shifting it at an angle that you don’t want. What I like to do is peel a few strands back and cut them close to the stem, but leave enough in there that the thread can grab them. This will keep it from shifting etc. also it is important that you don’t catch any of the hackle barbs that are going to be wrapped forward or you will not get the first wrap of the hackles to flare out when palmering it forward.

Once you have tied in the hackle you are ready to dub the body. Now I know a lot of you are saying to yourself he forgot to tie in the wire. I don’t like the wire for a few reasons. When winding the wire forward it will definitely catch a lot of the hackle barbs and you wont get that nice flare and two is it adds weight to the dry fly. If you are a tier like me who cares if you lose a few on a fish or the hackle comes undone. You know out of all my fishing days of fishing these I have only had two fall apart because of the hackle not being secured by the wire. If you are a beginner or a rough caster then you might have a problem with them staying together. I just don’t have that problem. It really is up to you on tying the wire in. If you do you will want to tie it now. Depending on what kind of dubbing you want is up to you. Just make sure it is a dry fly dubbing. Wapsi has came out with the new Beaver dubbing that is excellent for dry fly dubbing. If you have not worked with this dubbing I would highly recommend you trying it.

Wrap the dubbing up to you get a little past the middle of the shank.

Once you have wrapped the dubbing go ahead and wrap the hackle up as well. NOTE: if you want the fly to ride higher in the water then wrap more times with the hackle. I like to do it this way and that is why I don’t tie in wire. You will definitely catch those hackles if you are winding a lot of turns of hackle.

Now you are ready for the elk hair. You will need to brush out the hair and you will need to make the ends all the same length so you will need some kind of hair stacker.

Measure the hair to the bend and the excess hair you will need to go ahead and trim off before tying it in. Cut the ends the same and leave just enough to hang onver the thread when you go to wind it in. now I see people have problems with this step all the time. The key to not making that hair flare to much and get more on the sides of the shank is to tie lose wraps, but enough of them to lock the hair in. If you tie to tight you will stand the hair up to high and you wont get the nice lay down effect. You want the hair to stay grouped together instead of flaring and spacing out.

Tie the thread to where it is on top of itself.

Whip finish the fly and it’s a done deal.