Observation, Approach, and Presentation

We’ve had an action-packed week in Yellowstone country. It began early Tuesday morning when our resident moose, Bullwinkle, decided to wage war on Jackie’s birdbath.

An hour later Yvon and I were on the water where he started out winning a battle with a gorgeous hooked jaw male brown trout he took on one of his famous soft hackles fishing it on his favorite bamboo rod, one the master Leon Hanson from Michigan crafted for him.

Yvon releases a nice brown trout.

The following day I had the pleasure of fishing a few hours with the new US Ambassador to Japan and his wife. Both caught fine trout on caddis patterns and promised to return soon, for a full day on the river.

New US Ambassador to Japan takes a nice Madison rainbow on X Caddis.

Most evenings Terry and I fished emerging caddis activity. You will see Terry sitting on the bank watching a big brown trout rising to emerging caddis pupae. A X Caddis Tan #16-18 and an amber Iris of the same sizes are the only caddis patterns needed for success. As with all our flies, they are easy to tie, highly visible and durable and fool lots of big trout.

Heads up! Here’s a large brown trout rising to emerging Caddis.

Today we arrived on the river early to find rising like wolves to Pink Lady mayfly spinners. I knotted on my new foam-hackle spinners and began taking several nice browns and rainbows until they abruptly quit rising. A short time later we noticed they’d moved into the soft-frog water along the shoreline and were feeding on #24 emerging midges. Adding a long pull of 6x tippet and knotting on a #24 Zelon Midge proved deadly on these rising fish, for half-hour until they quit rising.

We did not sit on the bank long before fish began feeding on emerging caddis, their explosive rises giving us the clue to switch to patterns like our Tan X and Iris Caddis, tied with sparkling-trailing shucks that imitate impaired emerging adults stuck in their shucks, and recognized by big fish as easy prey. We took several nice trout until the rise-forms changed, again. Now the large fish sipped casually, moving slowly to take PMD Duns drifting in the seams and behind boulders along the shore. A switch to #18 PMD Sparkle Duns was all that was needed to fool most sippers.

Eperorous spinners bring up big trout during morning spinner falls on Madison.

By close observation, careful approach and presentation with proper fly patterns we had a banner week of fishing Yellowstone country. I hope to see you see soon. And now, I’m heading to my fly tying table to replenish flies used this week.

If you want to fish dry-flies you’d better get to Yellowstone country, quick!

PMB and BWO on the Madison.

It has been 2 decades since we’ve seen such incredible early season dry-fly fishing here. Pale Morning Dun, Baetis (BWO) and Green Drake mayflies continue to emerge in number on rivers like the Henry’s Fork and Madison. Big trout rising to their hatches, best on cool-rainy days, and we’ve seen lots of those lately.

Caddis mating swarm along the river.

Evening caddis activity is cranking up on the Madison, and salmon flies are showing up above Wolf Creek as well. Make sure you play the short video showing an evening caddis mating swarm so common now along the river from Ennis, Montana to Earthquake Lake.

PMD and Hydropsyhe Caddis

My fishing buddy, Yvon Chouinard, is here and we’ve had some incredible fishing this week. I got Yvon off his fishing soft hackles kick, and back to fishing dry flies when every big fish in the river was rising to emerging mayflies during rain and hail storms last Monday and Tuesday.

Yvon scores a nice Rainbow.

Last Wednesday my good friend and fishing partner Terry, my wife Jackie and I drove into the Park to fish. While we waited for a rain storm to move in and get the PMD mayflies emerging in number we hiked along the river to revisit an old poacher’s cabin, then an Indian hunting pit I’d located years before. You never know what you’ll find hiking along our area rivers.

Ruins of an old poacher’s cabin.

Indian hunting pits along the river.

Once the PMDs rolled off we had nonstop dry fly fishing to big rising brown trout for 2 hours before the sun peaked out and the PMDs shut off for the day.

It is important to remember the 3 clues to Caddis emergences and trout rising to them on rivers as John and I wrote about in our little “Fishing Yellowstone Hatches”. The first, trout are seen leaping out of the water as trout chase emerging Caddis pupae and their momentum carries them out of the water.

The second clue is that there are NO insects on the water. Adult Caddis are very difficult to see drifting on the surface.

The third clue is that most of the feeding fish are bulging and splashing in fast water sections of the river when the trout take the pupae from the surface and turn downward. In slower water you will see quiet dimples and porpoise rolls or tails breaking the surface.

If you remember these simple clues you will be successful taking fish on emerging Caddis, I guarantee.

And, have X and Iris Caddis patterns in your fly arsenal. Then you can’t miss fooling even the most selective caddis feeding trout. Let me know how you do.

Nice Rainbow Trout took an X Caddis.

Until next time, thanks for reading and please support our partner conservation organizations, and keep on fishing!

Hunkered down tying Fly Patterns of Yellowstone

Yesterday my good friend and owner of Patagonia Inc, Yvon Chouinard called to check in and find out how we were doing. It turns out both he and I have been hunkered down tying flies, lots of flies, passing time and preparing for the upcoming fishing season.

John Juracek, a great friend, former business partner and coauthor of classic fishing books like our “Fly Patterns of Yellowstone Vol 1 and 2” published by Blue Ribbon Flies, 1986-2008, has been checking in frequently too. He and I have been discussing fly patterns, books we’ve read this winter and thoughts for the coming season’s fishing.

I found that John and I have each tied several dozen X Caddis for our personal fly boxes this winter. This is the most effective dry fly caddis known to man and anyone can tie it. It imitates all caddis species by simply varying the size and body color to match the natural.

A bit of fly design history here. While John and I developed the X Caddis to fool the large resident rainbow trout of the Henry’s Fork, it was my wife Jackie who came up with the idea of incorporating the flies trailing-shimmering, sparkling shuck. Her reasoning was simple and she explained it to us. If super selective trout took our world-famous Sparkle Duns with their trailing shuck for emerging and crippled-impaired mayflies why wouldn’t the same thing work with caddis imitations too? We knew that caddis, like mayflies, can experience difficulties emerging from their pupal shucks. Many end up trapped in their shucks entirely or with the shuck trailing off their bodies and wings fully emerged.

We were planning to fish the Henry Fork’s big rainbows the next day. In the past these monster fish refused high floating Elk Hair Caddis and other patterns we fished when caddis emerged. We tied a few caddisflies using deer hair for wings, a rough dubbed body and a sparkling trailing shuck to fish the big trout selectively taking emerging caddis to try the next morning.

When we arrived at 9a.m. fish were already rising to emerging Cheumatopsyche caddis, a species that rides the surface for a considerable distance after hatching. Big rainbows sipping the naturals, some fully emerged while others trailed their pupal shucks behind, caught on a leg or the rear end of the insect. We fished our new X Caddis patterns and landed several fine rainbows.

Fish may not always key in on cripples or impaired adults but we’ve found that this fly works well, in fact, much better than standard ties like the Elk Hair Caddis and is much easier and cheaper to tie. It is fished dry and dressed with floatant. Upstream dead-drifting is the most productive method, casting to individual rising fish if they are rising. The fly also works well when pulled under the surface in front of rising trout and allowed to pop up to the surface.

Watch this short video to learn to tie our X Caddis.

To tie the X Caddis, begin by attaching the thread to the hook shank then tie on a shuck of caddis shuck dyed zelon, extending about the length of the hook shank or less. Next dub a body of forward to just behind the eye of the hook. Now stack a wing of deer hair and tie in on, extending to the hook bend. The wing should be full and cup the body, extending over the sides of the fly. Whip finish and trim the wing butts, Elk Hair Caddis style.

X CADDIS

Hook: Tiemco 100 or equivalent, #12-22

Thread: 8/0 to match natural body color

Shuck: Caddis dyed zelon

Body: Zelon dubbing blend; olive, tan, amber and black most common

 Wing: Natural deer hair

Check out Blue Ribbon Flies to find the books noted above, among others on fly fishing Yellowstone, along with materials for the X Caddis like hooks, thread, zelon, and deer hair.

As always, thanks for taking the time to read this blog and watch the short video. Looking forward to using the fly patterns of Yellowstone soon.