Fished for three hours from ~1pm to ~4pm, hatching Caddis were beginning to show on arrival and continued to swell reaching a peak at ~3pm. Fish were caught on a #18 and #20 EHC with a Greyish Wing and Black/Grey Body. I fished a pupa trailer for the 1st half hour or so and picked up a handful but dropped it after the trout really began concentrating on surface adults. I lost count of how many trout were caught after 25 but it was substantially more than that, fairly easy pickings with a dead drifted EHC. The “wave” phenomenon that I had documented previously this season occurred again with long lulls and no rising, when the trout began rising again they would swell to a boil then drop off abruptly. The rising sections seemed to decrease in duration as the afternoon wore on with the length of the lulls getting progressively longer. There also seemed to be a relationship between the wind and rising, the windier it got the fewer fish rose, likely because the caddis just weren’t hovering over the stream during the wind gusts. I attempted various presentations and was surprised how many fish would take a sunk EHC stripped in like a streamer (very interesting). I attempted skittering for a while but found a dead drift producing more successful rises. I fished a single spot and didn’t move more than fifty feet but suffered a bit due to my choice of casting location, my belief is that when dead drifting a fly that is supposed to riding high any amount of drag can turn fish off, especially when they have so many perfectly safe choices swarming around. Due to my casting location I was crossing a couple currents leaving my “dead” drift a fairly short time frame before any drag would set in even when mending. I did fish a couple #18 and #20 EHC Puffs when the going got tough and I wanted something that would ride high but as with most things CDC after the first good dunking it lost some of its effectiveness. The afternoon ended with a fair amount of observation and camera work. Honestly I’m not thrilled with most of these photos the sun seemed to be working against me and I was trying different settings on my camera. Note the darker appearance of some of the caddis.

Slide Show

After my recent Sunday outing that saw a massive caddis hatch, a discussion with other knowledgeable anglers in our area has lead me to believe that what I have referred to as the “Gray Caddis” hatch was incorrect. I’ve been fishing a different hatch. That’s not to say I was completely wrong, the Gray Caddis hatches during this same period and perhaps some of the hatches in the past included the Gray Caddis (i.e. two or more hatches were overlapping). There is some debate as to what specie I was witnessing come off but what is not debatable is that it’s the same specie I’ve been running into for the last couple years. I didn’t stop to pick up adults when they were hatching in force on Sunday, that was a rookie mistake I won’t make again. With that said my curiosity had to be satisfied so I went searching for more of those same caddis hoping I could find a few hatching to gather more information for the weeks to come. Along the way I managed a handful of Browns on a #8 Black Hairball and in between I did toss a #16 EHC for fun…I love rising trout and rise they did, even with minimal hatching adults the EHC took fish after fish, crushed upon subtle impact.

General Notes/Observations:

• Two Sizes of Caddis Adults found: #16 and a #18 (Referring to Body Length).
• The #16 Showed a Lighter Colored Wing w/Olive & Black Abdomen/Body.
• The #18 Showed a Darker Colored Wing w/a Mostly Black body with a spot of Olive.
• The #16 and #18 were found mating so I’ve got to think they are the male/female of the specie.
• Legs on Both were Black changing to Cream or Tan at the end of the legs.
• There were more of the #16′s around than the #18′s by 2:1 easy.
• A Search of the substrate and riffles showed a majority of the tubular cased shells were sealed for the beginning of the pupating process. I am not sure if this is the larval form for this adult or not but it was the only larval form pupating that I found in quantities that would support this hatch.
• Catching Caddisflies and documenting them with a camera even under good lighting conditions is difficult, especially when your searching for the few that are around. Also, remember that a photo taken doesn’t necessarily represent the colors of the natural 100% all of the time, lighting plays a huge role in what you take home with you and reference later.
• Note the width of the body on the #16, something to think about, maybe break out of that perfectly Mayfly tapered body mold for a change, after all isn’t it size, shape, then color? Size and shape of these bodies are not consistent with the standard Mayfly.

Slide Show

This is the 1st in what may be a long series on Caddis flies. As with the Mayfly Entomology series I did, I will be concentrating specifically on the species within the Hatch Chart that the Lanesboro Fishery put out, you can view it here. Armed with research tools and the chart I will be grouping the species into appropriate groups and posting information on each.  A few things should be discussed though before delving into the specific species of Caddisfly here in Southeast, MN.

I feel that Gary LaFontaine places special emphasis on the pupal state of a caddisfly and because the caddisfly has this stage in it’s development I thought this would be a good place to give some general information on the life cycle of the caddisfly.

Egg’s: Are deposited by female caddisflies some of whom deposit them by diving under the water fully submerging themselves and depositing the egg’s in a good location. Some species of caddis also fully submerge themselves but do it by crawling into the water from any location protruding from the surface. This is a good thing to note if you see concentrations of flies surrounding branches sticking out of the water or rocks.

Larva: Caddisflies exist as a Larva for most of the life cycle and as such these Larva are of great importance to the fly fisherman. As you probably know they come in many shapes and sizes. Anyone who has turned up a rock here has seen them even though they may not have known what they were looking at. Caddis larva live in a few ways, some species live uncased and cling to rocks with a spur or barb that protrudes from the back end of the larva. These typically are longer, green-olive and sometimes extremely bright green in color. Some species build cases from small pebbles weaved together with silk. Some simply weave a shell of silk around them while others build small bunkers in which they fully cover themselves like a small bomb shelter. The picture of the un-cased larva is of the underside and shows the tail which grasps onto rocks well. 

Pupa: When the caddis fly is ready and water conditions are right a larva will begin to change into a pupa. This pupa is different from a rising nymph in that caddis use a thin layer surrounding them which inflates with tiny bubbles to help them rise to the surface. LaFontaine goes into great detail with regards to this process because it was viewed improperly before his diving experiments and observations. The caddis will remain just below the surface after it has inflated its coating for potentially quite some time making this a good condition to imitate. With that LaFontaine used the Dupont product Antron to simulate the bubbles and how trout perceive the light reflected by these bubbles. The pupa remains just below the surface until the fly is about to emerge in which it does so fully able to fly off immediately unlike the Mayflies who must typically hang around the surface drying its wings.

Adult: The adult leaves the water immediately. Caddis flies can be seen in there adult form dancing over riffles and preparing to mate and deposit eggs thus starting the cycle over again.

Once again I will note that I am not an expert but attempting to learn as much as possible specific to the area of Southeastern, MN which may or may not pertain to Southwestern Wisconsin and Notheastern Iowa. I encourage comments which will either point out a flaw in my writing or will provide me with more information.