The Joy of Fly Tying: Elk Hair Caddis

The third, and last, night of my Joy of Fly Tying classes focuses on dry flies. My students have to take everything they've learned in the first two weeks and use those skills to produce smaller and more dainty flies. Usually they start out the evening filled with dread thinking about tying small flies, but by the end of it I can sometimes get them downgraded to minor trepidation. I told you I was a good teacher! The first fly of the night is the Elk Hair Caddis.

The Elk Hair Caddis (EHC from now on) should be fairly easy for my students, since they learned most of the skills needed for it on the first night when they tied a Wooly Bugger. The only new skill is installing a wing made of elk hair. That should be easy enough, right? Well, some times it goes well and sometimes it doesn't. But that could be said of every technique for a beginning fly tyer. This is one fly that all beginners should practice until they get good, because the EHC is that important of a fly.

To show how important the EHC is, I will attest to the fact that 3 of the 4 largest trout I have caught in my 4 favorite local rivers were caught on this fly. And to be even more honest, those three trout were all caught within 15 minutes of each other in the same pool during an amazing hatch of the Mother's Day Caddis several years ago. And I lost an even bigger one that same day after fighting it for 5 minutes or more. Caddis flies are very prevalent, and the EHC is one of the best imitations.

Let's watch how to tie one...

Elk Hair Caddis Pattern Recipe

Hook: Standard dry fly hook, size 8-22
Thread: 6/0
Rib: Small copper wire
Body: Dry fly dubbing to match the natural
Hackle: Brown, grizzly, ginger, or dun rooster hackle
Wing: Elk hair