Nelson’s Caddis SBS

[Scott P.]

Another “oldie” (I’m dating myself here) developed in the 80’s by Nelson Ishiyama, owner of Henry’s Fork Lodge.  I remember seeing the fly in an old copy of FlyFisherman Magazine and thought it’d be fun to tie some up.  Five materials (including hook and thread) is all it takes to make a fly that floats pretty well and gets the fish’s attention; I’ll take that any day.

hook – Dai Riki 320 #16
thread – Uni 8/0 tan
butt – dubbing ball tan
body – dubbing  tan (3 segments)
wing – deer hock (3 segments)
hackle – barred cream

note – I think the original had hackle stem antennae; please feel free to add if you like

Mash down barb and start thread at 75% point on shank

add a small bit of dubbing to make a butt bump

cut a small clump of deer hair (keep it fairly sparse), comb out underfur, clip to length (a bit longer than the hook gap) and tie in 1st wing segment

dub next body segment

add next wing segment

dub again

add last wing segment

prep hackle; love this barred cream from Charlie Collins, kind of a washed out cree

tie in (make sure you have a smooth thread base for the hackle)

wrap hackle forward, tie off, clip, have Sally pay a visit and you’re done (I’ve trimmed the hackle flush on the bottom on occasion but chose to leave it intact here)

Change body, wing, hackle colors to suit your needs.  Pretty easy to tie (doesn’t leave me mumbling incoherently and weeping like a Goddard Caddis does); a neat fly that never got it’s due.

Regards,
Scott

[gajuma]

The late Mike Fong was an avid proponent of this fly.

[Zach Matthews]

I wonder if that would still take fish on the Henry’s Fork.

[Scott P.]

I wonder if that would still take fish on the Henry’s Fork.  They were mostly using no-hackles out there this year…

Zach

I’ve got boxes and boxes of flies that don’t work on THAT river  🙂
This one’s pretty effective on a lot of surrounding water though, so it’s got that going for it, which is nice.

Regards,
Scott

[Jeff Smith]

I love those older trout patterns. They talk to me of a simpler time in fly fishing.
Thanks

[Author]

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