The Day Drifter caddis: A More Lifelike Peeping Caddis Fly Featuring a Caddis Worm That's Got Legs

[troutracker 0]

Comparison of the Day Drifter Caddis (left) with the natural

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A video describing the backstory of the fly and how to tie it is posted at: youtu.be/yHywcDlcBu4

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Introduction:

Most rivers in the West have a Brachycentrus (occidentalis) hatch starting in later April that peaks in May called the Mother's Day hatch. This hatch is increasingly important for daytime fly fishers in that Brachycentrus is now recognized as a cased caddis that drifts during the daylight hours and not just at sunrise & sunset.

A Brachycentrus larva looks like a worm with six joined legs. The caddis worm color varies from chartreuse & pastel shades of green that lighten all the way to a cream color in some individuals. Brachycentrus uses the locally available sodden plant debris that are assembled into a stick-built chimney-like case. The debris is held together by a silk-like material the worm itself excretes. The color of cases on the Upper Arkansas River where I fish are very dark brown to almost black.  In the video, Brachycentrus cases from other rivers are seen as banded tan & brown stick-built chimney-like tubes. 

Not widely utilized is the fact that the worm is not fixed in its case & can extract itself out of its case if needed.  The often brightly colored larva has been observed sliding in and out its case, so that as it drifts it can signal a flashing color to the trout.  The larva also holds its legs well out from its body as it forages for food.  It is these natural extensions of the worm body and legs out of the case that the Day Drifter caddis mimics.

 The peeking caddis pattern was developed by George Anderson circa 1970s to imitate the Brachycentrus of the Mother's Day Caddis hatch on the Yellowstone River (www.swtu.org/2017/10/03/peeking-caddis/ ). Reportedly, Anderson thought the key to a successful cased caddis pattern was it had to convince trout that the case contained a living caddis worm.  To represent the worm Anderson tied in a greenish dubbing band just ahead of the brownish case. Hence the name “Peeking Caddis” is used for a fly tied wholly on the hook shank. The style of this fly tied with a caddis worm extending out over the hook bend is called the “Peeping Caddis.” 

Recipe:

Hook:  I like to use 2x wide gap hooks with a 1 cm shank length--like the Firehole 633 size 14 to 12-- imitate fully mature cased caddis. I use smaller hooks sizes to imitate less mature ones. 

Thread: SemperFli brand nano-silk brown 30 denier:

Ribbing: UTC Ultrawire amber color in small (about 0.1mm) size. If a darker case is desired, use black wire.

Caddis Worm: Take an old chartreuse, pale green or cream, colored fly line and, using pliers, strip off about 5-6 mm of the fly line’s PVC coating to expose the Dacron core. Use a bodkin to tease apart the fibers of the exposed Dacron core. Color the exposed fibers and cut butt end of the PVC fly line dark brown using a permanent marker. The color of the fly line itself can changed using a green marker. Finish the caddis worm by using thin point scissors to cut the middle fibers out to make two groups of about 3 legs each. Cut off the fly line at an angle about 1 cm from the legs and tie 5 mm of that angled piece in on the top of the hook shank so that it projects out like a tail about 4-8mm from the hook bend.  The bump of the fly line tied in on top of the hook shank starts to make the thick end of what will be the tapered case after weight is added. 

Weighting: Optional--no bead or lead wire at all in the lightweight version--use instead a long taper cut piece of fly line to form the underbody for the case. For the heavy version, you can get a 2mm bead on these hooks and it is placed just behind the hook eye. I prefer not to use a bead at all as it really looks out of place at the small end of the case. To compensate, I add quite a bit of weight under the case by lashing three short pieces of 0.015-to-0.020-inch (0.4-0.5mm) lead wire on top of the shank alongside the lashed in piece of fly line. These three lead pieces, along with the underlying hook shank to form a square cross section like that of the natural. The lead pieces are stopped well short of the hook eye and staggered as to where they are tied off at-- so that the micro-fritz body can be tapered down towards the hook eye. Note that the weight on top of the shank acts to invert the fly so that the hook point tends to drift up to reduce fouling. 

Case: The stick-like debris that Brachycentrus uses for its case are usually shades of tan, brown, dark brown & on up to brownish black.  Use a color of SemperFli  micro-fritz to match the natural in your river. For the U. Arkansas River where I fish, I use a dark mocha brown fritz.  After the weight is lashed in, cut and tie in a 3-inch piece of micro-fritz at the hook bend. Wind the micro-fritz over the caddis worn then side by side on down the taper to the hook eye. Spiral the ribbing wire forward over the micro-fritz body.  Whip Finish. 

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When to fish the day drifter is schematically shown in the chart below that was compiled for the Upper Arkansas River in Colorado. Of course, the timing would vary from river to river and on a given river from the lower reaches where hatch usually starts to its upper reaches where they usually end. When fishing Brachycentrus caddis nymphs consider that there is a 4-5 week pupation period (shown in red) before the hatch of that species--in which there is no drift at all--because the pupae in their case are solidly attached to the bottom of the stream. Many free-living caddis species also build cases and attach themselves to the bottom of the stream making them unavailable in the few weeks before hatching. Perhaps this is why many folks find caddis nymphs more frustrating to fish over mayflies and stoneflies whose nymphs usually become more active and consequently more available in the drift right on up to hatching.

[troutracker 0]

Many thanks to Joyce Gross who gave me permission to use the most excellent image of a Brachycentrus Larva posted on The Bug Guide-- that is shown in the post above.

[niveker 0]

Nicely done, trouttracker.  

[cphubert 0]

Thank you very nice post

[partsman 0]

Yes, thank you very much for an informative and helpful post! That is one cool looking tie.

Mike.

[chugbug27 0]

+1 and .... Interesting hatch chart, haven't seen it done quite like that before.

[troutracker 0]

47 minutes ago, chugbug27 said:

+1 and .... Interesting hatch chart, haven't seen it done quite like that before.

Thanks to all for the encouragement. The hatch chart is an attempt to figure out the caddis drift timing and the times when the fly is has less chance to work -- like when pupation cements that cased caddis species to the bottom for 4-5 weeks.  It's become apparent to me that besides 'matching the hatch" we also need to 'catch the drift.'

[chugbug27 0]

Me, too. Good effort

[Guest]

Wow you got that covered!

Reminds me when I tied my first flies from a kit from RodGunClub in Wiesbaden, Germany as a USAF brat back in ‘64.  The guts in the trout in the leased streams were full of the cased caddis  and they were everywhere on the rocks.  I tied the simple chennile with black head larva.  My logic was the trout knew what was in the cases but when they hammered mine the thought, “There goes one without the rocks and sticks.”   Wham!😛

Paracord and tiny bead chain eyes?