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EGG-LAYING
CADDIS
Imitate this stage of the caddis life cycle for the best dry-fly action.
ALLEN MCGEE
Intro | Presentation Techniques | Sizing the Patterns
Egg-laying caddis imitations are designed to either float high enough to skitter and bounce across the surface or swim through the water like the naturals. Effective spent caddis patterns imitate the natural's splayed wings. Top row: Deer Hair Caddis, Soft Hackle Diving Caddis, Hare's-ear Soft Hackle; middle row: Agent 99, Mathews' Spent Caddis, Lawson's Spent Partridge Caddis, Bead Thorax Diving Caddis; bottom row: LaFontaine Diving Caddis, Quad Wing Caddis, Delta Wing Caddis.
Most fly fishers know that caddis are an important trout food. Trout often prefer caddis pupae because adults fly quickly off the water after emerging. Pupae are easier targets than adults, so trout expend less energy eating them. Thus we do well to imitate emerging pupae instead of adults during caddis emergences.
However, adult caddis are available to fish at another stage for a long period of time. When female caddis lay their eggs (a stage called ovipositing), adult patterns work best. To anticipate when trout may feed on ovipositing females, look for caddis flying in large swarms upstream and low over the water. These are males looking for receptive females to mate with. The males are not usually available to the fish, but the females are available soon after they mate and lay their eggs.
When females are ready to lay their eggs, they return to the water and deposit them. Many species, including the most prevalent species, Hydropsyche (net-building caddis), dive underwater and lay their eggs on rocks or boulders on the stream bottom. Then they swim to the surface before flying away to mate again, or die and drift downstream spent. Trout feed on these insects descending to the stream bottom and ascending to the surface.
If you see caddis bobbing up and down touching the water, these are egg layers depositing eggs on the surface or getting up enough speed to break through and dive under the meniscus. Diving is the most common form of egg-laying behavior, but some caddis lay eggs underwater by crawling down submerged tree limbs or rocks. A soft-hackle pattern is a great imitation for these divers.
Caddis also lay eggs while drifting in the surface currents. Brachycentrus (Grannom) and Dicosmoecus (October Caddis) are two species that dip their rear abdomens, which contain the egg sacs, into the water and release eggs that settle to the bottom. Imitate these caddis with adult patterns that have appropriately colored egg sacs.
As Yogi Berra said, "You can observe a lot by watching." It's important to watch and determine whether the fish are really eating adult caddis. In some cases an emergence may be taking place alongside egg laying.
If you see fish rolling or porpoising, or see splashy rises, they are probably eating emerging pupae. However if adult caddis are floating downstream, bouncing over the surface, skating across the surface, or floating spent downstream, try fishing an egg-laying adult pattern on or below the surface. You won't see diving caddis unless you see them bobbing over the water before diving. Fish adult surface egg-laying patterns with a drag-free drift or add a rod-tip twitch combined with a downstream presentation if you want to skate the fly over the surface like an adult.
Regardless of how each species lays their eggs, they eventually end up as spent adults awash in the film. Spent caddis look larger than live caddis because their muscles have relaxed and their wings are splayed. These spent caddis drift downstream on the water's surface, and since they aren't struggling to fly away, the fish rise to them more leisurely than for emerging caddis pupae.
But these rises are not as subtle as when fish rise to mayflies. When there are a lot of spent caddis on the water, the rises are often powerful and intense. Fish to these surface-working fish with spent caddis patterns, a dry-fly presentation cast (such as Harvey's slack-line cast), and a drag-free drift.
Allen McGee is the author of Soft-Hackled Nymphs (Amato, 2005). He lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
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