Featured Fly - Soft Hackle Caddis Larva

This is a great fly to have in your steelhead box. There have been studies on a steelhead's winter diet that say over 50% of their food intake is some form of caddis fly. Winter months in the Great Lakes, and high fishing pressure can often times turn fish off of traditional bright flies. They will turn to more natural patterns, like over sized pheasant tails, any stonefly patterns, and one of my most recent favorites, the caddis larva. So next time you are having a slow day standing in Altmar, try a soft hackle caddis larva.

Materials:

Hook: TMC 2457 - 8 - 12

Thread: UNI Thread 6/0 - Tan or Brown 

Rib: Holo Tinsel - Gold - Small

Body: Life Cycle Dubbing - Caddis Green 

Under Body: .010 Lead

Collar: Partridge Feather - Natural Brown 

Head: SLF Bug Dub - Tan 

Step 1: Start your thread base. Once you are half way, add in the holo tinsel as you wrap back.

Step 2: Add about 15 wraps of .010 lead.

Step 3: Dub the body, leaving enough space to add hackle and dubbing for the head.

Step 4: Rib the body with the holo tinsel.

Step 5: Tie in the Partridge feather from the tip.

Step 6: Make 2 or 3 wraps of the hackle, or until it is a full as you like.

Step 7: Dub the head.

Finished Fly:

Troy with an awesome Salmon River Steelhead, that fell to a caddis larva

Oak Orchard steelhead that fell to the soft hackle caddis larva in the fast water

Oak Orchard - Year 4

Tuesday night after work, I met up with Steve "The Mailman" Nelson, for our annual midnight drive up to Oak Orchard for the tournament. We arrived just after midnight; we didn't waste much time setting the tone for the trip. Drinking until about two am, we hit the hay for a brief nap, until the four am alarm went off. It was five days of awesome fishing, not too many brown in the system, but the steelhead, and kings were there and ready to eat. One of the reasons I do this tournament, is the food, it is so good and there is no shortage of it. Each day we get breakfast, lunch, and dinner, everything is home cooked right there on the river, so I guess "riverside" cooked is more like it. Stoneflies were, again, my fly of choice for the whole tournament, hot bead head prince nymphs, and small eggs were also working well. One fly that I would have never thought to fish, the San Juan Worn, was cleaning up for one of the guys in our group. Anyway I could type for hours about the trip, but I'm going to let the pictures tell the story.

Oak Orchard

Well I'm back from NY now, it was a great trip. The crowds were high, water was perfect and the fish were there and ready to bite. I spent 3 days on the Oak this past week, as you know from my pervious post. The fishing was great, tough but great, with so much fishing pressure the choice of fly definitely seemed to matter a bit more this go around. Anything small and black seemed to be the ticket, my hot flies for this trip were all related to a black stonefly, below you will see a couple examples. Ill let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Enjoy!

Steve with a nice Oak Orchard Brown Trout

Steve with an awesome Oak Orchard Brown Trout

Oak Orchard Steelhead  

Not Huge, but man was she pretty 

Great Lakes Steelhead Flies 

Steelhead Tube Flies

Great Lakes Steelhead Nymphs

Sandy Creek Steelhead, First Steelhead of the season 

Peter with a hog of a Brown Trout

Nice Sandy Creek Brown Trout

My monster