The Elk Hair Caddis

The Elk Hair Caddis, a fly that every fly fisherman/ woman should have in their flybox, if not, you should maybe consider a new sport. Designed by Al Roth to fish the Caddis hatches in Montana, it was first published in 1978, although he had been using the pattern for years before this. An excellent imitation of an adult Caddis that has many variations.

hook: 8-18 standard dry fly hook
thread: 6/0
hackle: grizzly
body: tan/ gray synthetic dubbing
wing: elk hair


step 1: start the thread behind the eye of the hook and wrap the hook body to the back.
Prepare and tie in hackle at the back of the hook.















step 2: attach the dubbing to the thread, making a it tapered towards the head. Wrap the dubbing up to about an 1/8" behind the hook eye, leaving room for the head of the
fly.













step 3: wrap the hackle to the head of the hook, tying it off at the end of the dubbing and cut all the hackle off of the top of the fly. Cut a chunk of elk hair and remove it's under fur
and then place it in a hair stacker to even it.

















step 4: measure out the elk hair, I like mine a little bit longer than the hook. I wrap a loop
around the hair and then attach it to the hook. I make the first few wraps without
much tension to eliminate flaring and then tighten it up to minimize it spinning on the
hook.

















step 5: cut the excess hair off of the front of the hook to create the head. I tend to angle my
scissors so that there is more hair left on top than at the eye. Finish off the fly with a
whip knot. you are done!

















Here you have one of the most useful flies ever. A very buoyant and visible fly, it can be regularly found at the end of my leader. I tie this fly in a variety of colors and wing materials. It can be tied with or without hackle, with a wire ribbing, like I said, lot's of variations. One of my favorite ways to fish this fly is down current and allowing it to skip along the surface of the water. Some of the most vicious strikes I've ever had were trout trying to destroy this fly hopping across the current.