Caddis Hatches 101

 

Good vid. I think I'm pretty successful fishing caddis and actually look forward to caddis hatches. Use a lot of CDC emergers, in the film pupa or spent patterns.

 

I love caddis. I use these 3 patterns. The larvae gets tied in green with a brown head as well. I really don't fish the dry too much, if I do it usually has one of the other dropping off it.


The middle one is my emerger. I had it and the larvae on when I caught this double on BFC this spring during a grannom hatch.

 

Does it seem to you that Caddis are in a down cycle for the last 2 years? Caddis are my favorite dry fly but where I fish in NWPA and NCPA the Caddis have been sparse. It seemed to take effect starting with the very low flows a few summers ago (the problem actually might be with ice extending to the stream bed and killing many Caddis). Looking for all opinions.

 

I don't know if the numbers were down but spring conditions caused me to all but miss the early season hatches. The later caddis and fall caddis seemed normal or better than normal numbers. It was always a brush hatch but they were there

 

Prospector I thought caddis numbers were fine in the major Central PA waters.

 

On what I consider my "home-waters" caddis are by far the best hatch that really turn on a lot of trout and get them in the mood after the long winter. I have had my best local dry fly specific fishing on BWO's though. But the caddis make it so easy to pluck fish with nymphs, wets, and dries and are the first major hatch for me on my local central PA waters.

 

Caddis seem to be down and less reliable on a certain stream I fish. They are still there but last two yrs or so I don't see the real heavy daily hatches. When checking bushes along stream they were just not there in big numbers. I would say overall in the last 40 yrs of fishing I have caught more fish on caddis than any other fly or hatch. And besides Green Drakes also some of my biggest dry fly fish.