All about western caddisfly hatches, with M.E. Sorci

Tom: Hi, and welcome to the "Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast." This is your host, Tom Rosenbauer. And this week, we're going to talk about caddisflies again. We talked about caddisflies about a month ago, about eastern hatches. And this week, we're going to delve even more into these often misunderstood and unappreciated trout stream insects that form a great part of a trout's diet in many rivers. In most rivers, actually. And my guest today is M.E. Sorci. M.E. is the manager of Orvis Jackson Hole. She's studying entomology. She really gets into the bugs, and she's a great angler. So she comes at it from both sides, from the fascinating entomology aspect of it and also from the fishing side of it as a fishing guide and lifelong angler. So, anyway, it's a fun podcast, and I learned a lot, and I think you will too. So hope you enjoy it.
And before we do the Fly Box, a little announcement. Starting on Monday, May 15th, 2023, Orvis Ultralight Waders and Ultralight Boots are going to have a special promotion. You can save $100 on a pair of waders and $50 on the boots. The Ultralight Waders are favorite of mine and have been a favorite of mine for many years. They're light, as it states in the name. If you're flying somewhere and you're worried about packing size and weight, the Ultralight Waders are a great way to save on weight and packing space. They're supremely comfortable. They're a very, very durable wader. They're supremely comfortable. It feels like you're wearing a pair of blue jeans or your favorite pants. The boots are really, really light, but they also offer a great deal of support. It's a great combination. And they're a favorite of myself.
And you know, I really like the PRO Waders, but once a warmer weather starts to come and I'm not wading wet yet, these are the waders I use. And you know, if I'm going to be...even if it's summertime, if I'm going to be fishing, you know, afternoon through the evening, and I don't want to wade wet because it just gets kinda cold and clammy in the evening, these are the waders I'll wear because they are a little lighter, a little more flexible than my favorite PRO Waders. And I can walk a long way in these waders with the Ultralight Boots, and they're a very, very durable wader. Don't let the Ultralight label fool you. They're very abrasion resistant, and they're very puncture resistant. So, anyway, this is a great deal, and again, starting Monday, May 15th, the waders and boots will be on sale. So if you need a new pair of waders or you want a spare pair of waders, this is a great deal for you.
Okay. And before we go and talk to M.E., let's do the Fly Box. This is where you ask some questions or offer some tips to other listeners, and you can either send your questions to me in an email or you can attach a voice file and put your question in there. Please try to keep your voice files under three minutes if you can. Occasionally, I read a longer one. I'm going to read a little bit longer one this week, but it's a good one, and it has some good questions in it. All right. Let's start though with an email. The first one is from Zach from Raleigh, North Carolina.
"There's a river four hours away from me where I have had success catching some nice brown trout Euro nymphing. I do not get fishies very often, but now that I am more confident nymphing this water, I would like to try fishing streamers to target the biggest fish. The challenge is that this river has plunge pool after plunge pool. Most pools are narrow, short, fast, 4 to 8 feet deep, and very clear. What would be your strategy for streamer fishing water like this? Additionally, if my plan is to throw 4- to 6-inch weighted streamers, what line type do you feel would be most effective for this scenario?"
Zach, that's a great question. Plunge pools are often difficult to fish. The one thing I would urge you is not to ignore the shallower parts of those 4 to 8 feet deep pools because the trout that are sitting in 8 feet of water are probably not feeding. You might be able to tempt them with a streamer, but they're probably down there because they're either spooked or they're just not very active. So first of all, make sure that you fish the tailouts of these pools and the side margins where the water is 2 to 4 feet deep before you start throwing your fly into the deeper water in the plunge pool, because often, the most actively feeding fish are going to be in shallower water.
That's my first suggestion. And then go ahead and fish that deeper water if you want. And I would absolutely not use a sinking line. You say they're short, fast, and deep, and very clear. Sinking line, you're not going to be able to get that sinking line to get down to the fish very efficiently in a short, fast pool. So my advice on water like this is to fish floating line in a long leader, you know, like, a 12-foot leader, and a heavily weighted fly, you know, something with a tungsten bead or cone on the head of it. And if you don't have any of those, you can stick a split shot in front of your streamer. And sometimes I would try putting the split shot right up against the head of the streamer. It's no different than a bead-headed streamer. Or, you know, try it 6 inches away or so and then, you know, just keep maybe adding shot until you feel you're getting down on the bottom. But I really think a floating line in a long leader is going to be a lot more efficient than trying any kind of fancy sinking lines in those pools. So start there.
Ross: Hey, Tom. My name is Ross from Colorado. You were kind enough to answer a question for me a few podcasts ago, so thanks for that. I've got a few more for you, this time all related to tying dry flies. So the first one is, how much hackle is too much hackle? And does it really matter? I know a lot of recipes call for a certain specific amount of hackle or size of hackle for each particular pattern in different sizes. But I very often used I think more hackle than they call for, sometimes larger hackle than they call for, partially because I think it helps the fly float better before it gets drowned and I have to hit it with desiccant or floatant and often because I'm suspending a nymph and sometimes, like, a bead head nymph off of it in, like, a dry dropper arrangement. And I haven't really noticed that it makes a lot of difference. I suppose that you could put in a totally unreasonable amount of hackle on a fly and it would start to matter. But I'm curious to know whether or not there's any downside to using more hackle than a given recipe calls for if you're looking for that little bit of extra float and whether or not you think I'm missing fish because of that.
Second question is sort of related, this time having to do with dubbing. So a lot of dry fly recipes call for dubbing on the body of the fly, including on dry flies that are mostly used to imitate mayflies, like, say, a Parachute Adams. I have been tying mine sometimes with dubbing but very often with just a tapered body made out of thread. And I have not noticed any difference in its ability to catch fish on the surface. I also have noticed that when you pick up a mayfly and look at 'em real closely, they don't have anything on their bodies that looks fuzzy. They kind of just don't have that shape or that texture, and so they have a pretty smooth body with the taper and a segmented abdomen. And I guess I'm just curious to know whether or not there's any particular reason to be using dubbing on those fly bodies as opposed to just natural colored thread with maybe a piece of moose hair or something similar to give the appearance of a little bit of segmentation or if that is just sort of something that is traditional and has been done that way for a long time but may or may not make a lot of difference in terms of the efficiency of the fly.
And then my last question is about dry flies that don't ride correctly in the water. So I'll often tie flies and throw 'em out, and sometimes they ride perfectly, with the hook down in the surface film and the hackle flat on the water, with the post sticking up just the way that I would like them to look. But very often, I'll throw out a fly and it will consistently ride to its left side or its right side. Sometimes they have a habit of flipping upside down, which just drives me crazy. I guess I'm not completely sure that it matters when it comes to catching fish. They seem to eat it just the same. But it does bother me a little bit for the fly to not ride correctly in the water, and I'm curious to know why that might be. So for instance, is it because the hackle is uneven on one side or the other? Are there fibers sticking down further on one side or the other? Is it something to do with the tail material? I'm just curious to know if you've run into that and if there's any particular solution to that problem to get the flies to ride nicely and correctly in the water surface.
So thanks in advance for any help you can give me, and hopefully I hear some answers. Thanks for everything you do.
Tom: So, Ross, first of all, yeah, in general, if I'm tackling a fly, I try to put on as much hackle as I can as well. One of the things about hackle is sometimes you just can't get a lot of hackle on a fly because the stems on the hackles you're using are a little bit thicker. And if you start trying to cram too much hackle in there, the hackles are going to wrap over each other, and they're going to go in all directions. It's not going to look very good. They might float okay, but they're not going to look that good. So often, saddle hackles are better, especially for bigger flies, because you can cram more hackle on there because they tend to have a much thinner stem than neck hackles and a pretty good fiber density. So I don't think you can use too much, but you know, I would tie a few with a little bit sparser hackle, and then I would tie, you know, most of 'em with the hackle that you're doing. I don't think there's any disadvantage to trying to cram as much hackle on there and still get a good-looking fly. So, yeah, just keep doing what you're doing.
Regarding dubbing, that's a really interesting question. I remember, when I was a teenager experimenting with flies, and I saw the same thing that you did that, you know, mayflies don't have fuzzy bodies, and so I tied some thread-bodied flies, and personally, I didn't think they worked as well as dubbing bodies. You can get dubbing pretty thin. You can get dubbing...you know, if you're careful with your dubbing and you use something like a super fine dubbing in a synthetic or rabbit fur or muskrat fur, you can get a pretty thin body that's going to be as thin as a body on a mayfly, and you can get them pretty tight to look almost as smooth as the body of a mayfly. The one thing about dubbing is that it holds floatant. And the fact that the dubbing holds floatant, thread doesn't hold floatant very well, will help your flies float. So your flies are going to float better and shed water better probably with a dubbing body.
The other thing is that, often, we're not trying to imitate a fully emerged mayfly. Fish often prefer the emerging mayfly that's crawling out of its shuck. And I think that sometimes a dubbing body imitates this better than a thread body, or maybe a thread on the abdomen and then dubbing on the thorax. But you know, for emerger flies, dubbing seems to work fairly well. It kinda imitates the mayfly crawling out of the shuck. So if thread's working for you, go ahead and do it. I'm gonna stick with my dubbing. I like dubbing. I like the way it looks. And, yeah, it is traditional.
As far as dry flies that don't sit perfectly on the water, first of all, does it matter? If you look at a hatch, if you look at mayflies during a hatch, a lot of 'em fall over. A lot of 'em are tipped sideways, and so, you know, having a fly that sits upright on the water, not necessarily a good thing, but you know, we like to have our flies float upright. I don't think an upside-down fly is gonna work very well because the fish aren't used to seeing those wings sticking down under the water. But if it tips to one side or another, I wouldn't worry about it.
What that comes from are a couple of things. One is that, if you don't wind your hackle evenly enough, it'll tip the fly to one side. And then sometimes your tails might be cocked a little bit to one side, and that will make the fly not ride upright. You can solve that by putting split tails on your flies. That'll help stabilize 'em. And generally, parachute flies don't...they generally float pretty upright because of the way they're constructed. That wing, you know, acts like a sail when the fly goes down on the water and the parachute hackle holds it in the proper position. So I don't find that happening that much with parachutes.
The other thing is sometimes uneven hackle. If you're not using a single saddle hackle or, you know, you're using two neck hackles and you pick neck hackles from different parts of the neck, or maybe the hackle varies with length and some of it's shorter and some of it's longer, that may also make the fly tip one way or the other. But again, probably not worth worrying about because it'll work either way.
All right. How about another email? This one is from Ryan from Colorado Springs.
"Hey, Tom. I had my first guided fishing experience this weekend and loved it. It was such a great learning experience, and I'd recommend any new angler to save up and do it once. The guide I had was an Orvis-endorsed guide, and he was an excellent instructor and educator about the reasons for the tactics we were using. I was fishing a fairly large tailwater, 100 feet across and around 200 CFS. I had hooked into a strong rainbow at the tail of the pool. With my guide's help, we ended up below the pool, over a 2-foot drop, and netted the fish. I can't imagine getting this fish netted myself. We were using 5X tippet on about a 12-foot leader total from line to end of fly and a 9-foot 5-weight Helios 3D. What tips do you have for fighting and landing a fish when it runs down the river and potentially through some short rock weirs?"
Ryan, that's a good question. And you know what, if you hook a fish in that situation and it runs, you're gonna lose some. It's just gonna happen. One of the things you wanna really do is try to run, try to run down, and get even with the fish or get below it so it has to fight back upstream. That isn't always easy by yourself, but it's about the only way to deal with that situation. If a fish is down through a chute of fast water, you're probably not gonna be able to get 'em up through that fast water. You're probably gonna lose the fish. So that's my advice, try to get below 'em.
The other thing is, you know, if you have a buddy or a guide and you hook a fish close to the tail of a pool before it drops over a chute or a waterfall, try to get the buddy to get in the river and splash and chase the fish upstream. You know, you could even do that if you got your wits about you, get in right below the fish quickly and try to get it to go upstream. But you know, often, they know what they're doing. And let's see, what other tips?
If a fish goes through a bunch of rock weirs, you know, generally, we like to use side pressure when we're fighting fish typically in fast water, but when a fish goes through those rock weirs, you're gonna have to use an elevated rod and just try to keep that line and leader away from those rocks. It's pretty, pretty obvious that that's what you got to do, but you know, don't try to use side pressure if a fish is running through a bunch of rocks.
The other thing that came to me the other day because I did something really stupid, I was nymph fishing in the morning, and I hooked a large brown trout, probably about 20 inches. And I was, of course, very excited. I don't hook that many brown trout that big in this season. And the fish thumped a couple of times and then ran upstream a little bit and jumped. And I saw how big it was and I thought, "Oh, boy, I better get this fish on the reel," because I had some line, you know, some loose line at my feet. So I did a stupid thing. Instead of keeping pressure on that fish and trying to lead it where I should have led it because there was a log and submerged branches on the far bank, I reeled in my slack. Well, you know what happened, I gave that fish a little bit of a break. I didn't keep constant pressure on it. And the fish ran for the far bank, got me in the logs, and broke me off, on 5X, coincidentally.
So, you know, it was a stupid thing to do. I shouldn't have tried to get that line out of the reel. I should have just kept stripping line, and I should have kept pressure on the fish. And I knew that log was there. I've lost lots of flies and other fish in that log. So I should have known better, but I didn't. So, you know, one of the other piece of advice I would give you is don't try to...if you know the fish is gonna run, if it's big, don't try to get the fish on the reel until the fish pulls that line through your guides. And you wanna, of course, guide it through the guides. But don't stop and try to get your line on the reel like I did because, often, that gives the fish a break, and you're not paying attention. And when you're reeling that line onto your rod or onto your reel, the tip bounces, and that can actually loosen the fly in the fish's mouth. So just keep pressure on 'em and do the best you can.
Here's an email from David from Stevensville, Montana.
"I recently moved to Western Montana and started listening to your podcast. Insert stereotype joke here. After listening to several episodes, I have a few different questions, so I'll try to keep them brief. One, you mentioned you prefer a 12-foot leader when fishing small streams. I plan on blue lining once the streams open up. I wanna use my new Orvis Superfine 7.5-foot 4-weight. Would you still use a 12-foot leader or go with a shorter leader? Do you use pre-made leaders or tie your own?
Two, I picked up a vintage Orvis Battenkill bamboo fly rod, circa 1970, and the cork handle has a decent amount of ridging. Any recommendations on restoring the handle as I would like to keep it original? If it can't be restored, is this something I can send in to Orvis to be replaced?
Number three, last October, I visited Vermont for the first time and was able to take a guided trip on the Battenkill River in the Manchester-Arlington area with Orvis-endorsed guide Brew Moscarello and had a blast. He showed me a caddis skating technique, and ever since I've been looking to purchase a 10-foot 3-weight fly rod. Initially, the rod will be used for presenting dry flies in the aforementioned caddis skating technique. Eventually, it will allow me to dip my toe into Euro nymphing. My question is, for the dry fly applications, does the extra-long rod affect what line weight you should use? I tend to be an aggressive caster and usually favor a more true-to-weight fly line versus half heavy line.
Number four, last but not least, I have a fly-tying question. I know peacock herls are very commonly used, but why aren't more parts of the peacock used for fly-tying? You have the mottled wings and bright blue body feathers that is bound to make for some killer fly combinations. Why don't we see more peacock fly-tying products?"
All right. So question one, I don't know where you heard that I prefer a 12-foot leader for small stream fishing and blue lining. If I did say that, I misspoke, because I don't. I generally use a 6- to 7.5-foot leader. Yeah, I don't think you need a 12-foot leader on small streams. Your floats are short, your cast is short, and you generally don't need a longer leader. I do use pre-made leaders, but I often modify them at the tip end just because my tippet gets too short or I wanna go to a bigger or a smaller fly. So I do manipulate the other end, but I do start with a pre-made leader. So I wouldn't use a 12-foot leader on small streams, particularly with that rod. Just a 7.5-foot leader will be fine.
Question two, it's really difficult to repair a cork handle that's got ridges in it. You know, if I it had a couple of pits in it, you can mix some cork dust with some adhesive and make a little paste and dab it into there. That's what they do in rod manufacturers. But, you know, as far as if there's ridges on there, I don't know of a good way to fix that that would look decent. But we do repair Orvis bamboo rods. We don't repair... And we could put a new handle on there for you. We don't repair non-Orvis bamboo rods, but yeah, they could put a new grip on there for you. So I would recommend you call customer service if you want it replaced and get the rod repair initiated.
Regarding your 10-foot 3-weight, I would not put a different line size on there. That 10-foot 3-weight is pretty much perfectly pegged to a 3-weight line. And, you know, Orvis rods, generally, you wanna use the recommended line size, maybe half line size heavier, like a power taper or something. But I wouldn't go, particularly if you're dry fly fishing, I wouldn't go with a different line. I would stick with that 3-weight line. And then when you dip your toe into Euro nymphing, you can just add a long leader to it and keep your fly line inside your guides. So that's what I'd do. I would use the regular 3-weight, either a Superfine line or the PRO Trout line, on that rod.
And then your fly-tying question, I'm not sure, because there are a lot of cool feathers on peacocks, and you may want to experiment with some of those feathers. I believe, I think I'm correct in this, one of the reasons that you don't see other peacock feathers regularly is because most of the peacock originally came from India, and they don't like to kill peacocks over there. So what they would do to sell peacock herl or peacock eyes is they would pick up shed feathers, feathers that were shed from the peacocks, and then they would sell those or export those. But because they didn't wanna kill peacocks, you know, it's hard to get wing feathers or body feathers without killing the bird. So I believe that's the original reason that people didn't use other feathers from peacock.
Now, there are some Atlantic salmon flies that use the mottled wings from a peacock, because they have some beautiful mottled wings. And, you know, the little neck feathers make nice beetles if you put a little adhesive on the feather. But I'm not exactly sure why, because there are domestic peacocks and people do harvest them occasionally, but I think it's mainly because people don't want to kill peacocks. They just pluck the tail feathers or they wait till the birds drop the feathers.
All right. Let's do another email. This one is from Bill from Salt Lake City.
"I live far from Florida, but I fish the Central Florida coast and really care about that area. Thanks for the conservation episodes you aired lately, especially the Everglades episode. I do not do very much saltwater fishing but do tie some of the flies for the trips that I'm trying to make annually. My question is, how can I get some experience seeing the natural forage food for saltwater species when I'm on a trip once a year? For freshwater trout, I found seeing/studying the natural insects improve my tying and can't help wanting to see a real shrimp or crab close up in person."
Well, Bill, there are a couple of books out there that talk about saltwater prey and how to imitate them. And I don't remember...I know one of them is by my buddy Aaron Adams, I don't remember the title. I should have looked him up, I'm sorry. But if you go online and look, you know, in a used books store or in a bookstore, probably you have to get it online because probably most bookstores near your area won't sell these, but there are several books on saltwater naturals and how to imitate them. So I would go and look that up, and you should be all set.
Roger: Hello, Tom. This is Roger Burr down here in Houston, Texas. I recently came in possession of an Orvis Helios 3D 9-foot 7-weight with a Hydros III reel. I'm thinking about using this rod for carp and bass, but this is my dilemma. The local carp pond is on one side of the seawall, while on the other side is a ship channel with a 5-mile-long dike. On that side, we have snapper, drum, speckled trout, and a number of other species of saltwater fish, and I may want to fish this rod on that side also. My problem is this, what type of fly line should I get? Is there a big difference between freshwater and saltwater fly line? Would a freshwater line hold up to saltwater? What about a warm water line? Would the saltwater line perform adequately in freshwater? There are just so many options and I don't know what to do. Tom, I look forward to your advice on this subject. Thank you, and have a good day.
Tom: So, Roger, there is really no such thing as a saltwater or a freshwater line. Any fly line will work equally well in freshwater or saltwater. They're impervious to saltwater, so you won't hurt the line. A freshwater line will work just fine in saltwater, and a saltwater line will work just fine in freshwater. I often use saltwater lines like the saltwater all-rounder for my carp fishing. So they're interchangeable. Sometimes, you'll find saltwater lines...often, saltwater lines have a little bit more aggressive front taper to them to help you throw those bigger flies.
And also, there, you often do encounter really hot weather when you're saltwater fishing in the tropics, anyways, and a line with a freshwater coating, we call freshwater, it's really cold-water coating, can get a little sticky in those tropical areas. But that's, you know, for where you are, where the water isn't going to be terribly warm, I don't know if you necessarily...well, it's Texas, so maybe you might need it. But they get a little sticky in the guides, and you're going to have trouble shooting 'em. And those same lines, those tropic lines or warm water lines, if you use them in colder water, say, below 60 or 70 degrees, they're going to be a little stiff because they often have a monofilament core that gets a little kinky in colder water. But in general, they're interchangeable.
So I would, you know, decide which you're going to do the most. Are you gonna fish more in really hot weather, or are you gonna fish more in, you know, more variable water conditions or the water is below 70 degrees? And then, are you gonna be throwing a lot of big flies, or are you gonna be throwing mostly more conventional, you know, size 4, 6, 8? Then you probably don't need to go to a saltwater line. I hope that's helpful. I hope I didn't confuse you more.
Here's an email from Don from New Jersey.
"Hey, Tom. Love the show. I always learn something new with each podcast. I have a question that I thought you could help answer. Whenever I get out for a day of fishing, I like to ride before sun up and was wondering if there's any strategies or techniques for the change from darkness to light and conversely from light to darkness at sundown. I also have a small tip for anyone who ties flies. I started to tie during the early stages of the pandemic, and one change made my time at the desk more enjoyable. Switched out my cheap, uncomfortable stool for a much more comfortable chair and was able to spend a lot more time at the bench without the sore back and with more time tying. I start to make some pretty good progress. Thanks for you and Orvis. All you do is really appreciated."
Well, Don, yeah, there is a change...I assume you're talking about trout fishing, but in general, if you're fishing early in the morning or in the evening, there's a couple of things you want to remember. One is that the fish aren't gonna see colors as well. They're using their cones in low light more than the rods in their eyes, and so, you know, rods don't see color, only the cones see the color. Or is it the other way around? I should know that, but I can't remember which is which. Somebody will correct me, I'm sure. But they don't see colors as well. So color is not as important. Most people in low light conditions like black because it shows up better against the surface. It shows more contrast, and the fish can see your flies better.
And the other thing is that fish aren't going to be able to see underwater very well in early morning or late evening. So whatever flies you use should be above the bottom. Don't try to scratch the bottom with Euro nymphing or something like that while there's no light on the water because the fish won't see your flies very well. You have to get it right in their face. Whereas if you're swinging a fly or your fishing a dry fly or fishing a streamer, you want to fish it a little bit closer to the surface so the fish can see it against, you know, the little bit of ambient light that is happening.
And generally, fish are less spooky early in the morning, and right before dark, they'll come out in the open a little bit more. They'll feed a little bit more aggressively, and so it can be really good, and especially early morning, you might not see as many people. But, yeah, you do wanna change your tactics a little bit. You can get away with a shorter leader in those low-light conditions as long as you're not worried about drag, and you can be a little bit less stealthy. And then just don't fish too deep. In fact, fish are gonna move in the shallower water to feed in the early morning and in the evening as well. So hope those tips are helpful.
Here's an email from Aaron from Massachusetts.
"I'm a novice fly angler here in Massachusetts. I'm generally aware of a concern about cross-contaminating water bodies with invasive species, but I have always associated that with boats for the most part. I was wading in my local lake on Sunday, catching some bluegill and perch on the fly, and saw a lot of algae in the water around me. What do I need to do to my gear, like waders and boots, to decontaminate it between water bodies? Is it a thorough rinse with a hose and some sun time to dry enough, or should I be using a treatment of some sort? Do I need to clean my rod and flies as well? Is there a good way to tell good algae from bad? Thanks for any advice you can give."
So, Aaron, first of all, the mantra for not transferring invasive species is clean, inspect, and dry. So clean your waders, particularly the areas around the cuffs, the gravel cuffs, and especially your wading boots, with water and a wire brush to remove any debris, algae, mud, whatever, from those. Clean them, inspect them, make sure you didn't miss any spots, and then dry them. Drying 'em in the sun is a really good thing to do. I wouldn't worry about your rod and your reel or your line or your flies. There generally isn't gonna be any debris transferred. Unless your rod gets dirty and muddy, it's coated with algae, you know, if you dropped it in the water, then you might wanna wash it off. But I wouldn't worry so much about that. It's mainly your wading gear that you need to be concerned about.
And I don't know of a way to tell good algae from bad, and besides, the things you're probably transferring are spores, you know, either spores or eggs from mollusks or algae. And you know, without being a botanist or a biologist and a microscope, you really can't tell one from the other, and you never know what might be hidden or unseen or unrecognized. So I don't think there's a good way to tell the difference easily between good and bad algae or whatever. I think you just need to be on the safe side and clean, inspect, and dry your wading gear.
Ben: Hi, Tom. This is Ben from Oregon. You've spoken before about replacement fly-tying materials, and I just wanted to give a tip on a couple of easy purchases from the craft store to save you a ton of money over what they package at fly shops. The first one is thin, flat foam for terrestrials. I've got, like, 1,000 pack of all the colors that was, like, 10 bucks, and you're not getting that at a fly shop for less than, like, 5 bucks for a tiny piece. The other one is tiny glass beads. I like to use these on chironomids, but one thing that I particularly think was helpful and started doing is putting them on the hook first for a larger dry fly, like, a sedge or a stimulator. I put a bead on whatever fun color my pattern is calling for right behind the eye of the hook and then tie my fly, and it really helps me not crowd the eye and get my whip behind the glass bead. And it doesn't seem to be affecting the float of the fly at all.
Quick question for you, just something for fun. I know how much you love your home water, and I would never leave my state because of all the water. I love to fish here. But if you had to leave and move to another state, let's just say in the U.S., what state would you pick just for the water there, just for the fishing? Thanks, Tom. You're the best.
Tom: So, Ben, I guess if that works for you, as far as putting up a glass bead in front of your dry flies, you can do it, but they do add some weight, and your flies are gonna float better if you don't add the glass bead. I would suggest that you either just, you know, mark off a spot on the shank where you want to stop with your thread. You could put a little waterproof marker on there, or you could even put a little piece of tape or a little piece of, I don't know, painter's putty or something like that over the eye to keep from crowding it. But, you know, if the glass beads work for you, go right ahead, but I don't think you need to go that far. I think that a little discipline will keep you from crowding the eyes of the flies.
And one of the things I would recommend is, yeah, you can save some money going to a craft store for certain things. There isn't a lot this useful on a craft store, but foam and glass beads are something you can pick up there. But I'd like to ask you. You know, if you're looking for a new fishing spot or you're looking for advice on tying a nail knot, is somebody in the craft store gonna be able to help you? Fly shops are the backbone of the fly fishing world, and they're there because they give really good advice. And if you're buying stuff in the craft store, you're taking money out of the pocket of the person who's going to help you when you have some fishing questions. So if you do go to a craft store and buy that stuff and save yourself a little money, make sure that you counterbalance that and offset that a little bit by visiting your local fly shop and picking up some tippet material or a new rod or reel or a pair of waders. We need to keep these independent fly shops in business in order for all of us to enjoy fly fishing.
So, as far as where would I move to for the fishing, boy, that's a tough question to answer. I like where I am in New England because I can drive to saltwater fishing. I can drive to lots of places to get great trout fishing and great fishing for bass and carp and all the other fish, bluegills, all the other fish that I love to fish for. But I would pick somewhere, just for the fishing, I would pick somewhere uncrowded, maybe Wyoming. And for saltwater fishing, I might pick someplace like Cape Cod where, yeah, there's a lot of anglers there, but there's also a lot of places to fish that you don't see anyone. Or the Bahamas, you know. I love bone fishing in the Bahamas. But I'm gonna stick to where I am in New England because I have such a great variety, and there's so much good fishing throughout this country. Nearly everywhere, you can find some interesting fly fishing. So I would really hate to narrow it down. I'm just gonna be resigned to living in Vermont and traveling to other places for more spectacular fishing.
All right. That's the Fly Box for this week. Let's go talk to M.E. Sorci about the mysterious caddisflies. And here we go. I'll introduce you, and then we'll take it from there. I'll ask a bunch of question, but I'm gonna let you do most of the talking.
M.E.: Okay.
Tom: So my guest today is M.E. Sorci, and M.E., initial M.E., I should say that, not Emmy, M.E. is manager of Orvis Jackson Hole. And, M.E., you are also an entomologist, correct?
M.E.: Yes. I would say, so maybe more of, like, a hobby entomologist, but it's hard not to be when you're living out where I do and have the bugs that we do out here.
Tom: Well, you've taken some professional courses though, right? I mean, you're studying entomology.
M.E.: That's correct.
Tom: So we're gonna call you an entomologist.
M.E.: Okay, perfect. I love it.
Tom: And an angler, which is better. And we did a podcast, I did a podcast maybe a month or so ago with Tom Ames, and it was mainly on eastern caddisflies. And I think that there's not a lot of difference between eastern and western species as far as fishing is concerned. But he didn't want to really say that what he said applied to the western hatches. So I asked a western expert to come on and talk about western caddis hatches, when to look for 'em, how to fish 'em, and I'll ask, I guess, how to identify, if you really want to. So I'm gonna let you take it away, M.E.
M.E.: Yeah, absolutely. So caddisfly is a really fun order. The Trichoptera order is really fun to study just because it's so different from the mayflies and the stoneflies that we're used to looking at and we're used to observing on the water as anglers. There's a lot of intrinsic fascination with them, with their cases and their traits, their special communication, their life histories, and kind of these bizarre structures that they build and the silk that they use. There's just a lot of really cool things if you start diving into the order Trichoptera. And so that's kind of fun if you really want to get super bug nerdy. It won't necessarily...everything you learn won't necessarily help you on the water, but it just puts these pieces together for that bigger narrative of what's going on and understanding this order and understanding this species, which is really cool.
Tom: And it gives you...
M.E.: There's a bunch of them.
Tom: It gives you a greater appreciation of nature when you're out there too, just understanding these things more, right?
M.E.: Oh, 100%, absolutely. And I think anytime you can learn and gain that intimacy with what's going on and just learning the names and learning, kind of understanding what's going on, it just brings you closer. It brings you closer to that reading the water, reading the species, and that intimacy that you have with the water. And then it also helps kind of like the canary in the coal mine. If something starts to go wrong, you, as even just an angler, you don't have to be an expert, can start to pick up on these cues if you're like, "Oh, man. Like, this hatch usually happens or I usually see this this time of year." Just knowing those processes helps to be more alert when things do start changing. If they change, of course, everything's changing. So it helps you kind of be boots on the ground there since, I don't know, who's on the water more than anglers on their home water. And so they're really great tools for this, like, citizen science. So that's really fun, knowing these pieces.
You don't have to know the Latin names. You don't have to know the science names for the different processes and all the anatomy terms, but just having some general understanding goes a long way in your angling career and just being a river advocate for your water. So that's my little soapbox about that.
Tom: Yeah. And knowing their life cycle, knowing how it differs from mayflies and stoneflies and midges will help a lot in your fishing.
M.E.: Oh, a whole bunch. Absolutely. And like I said, there's a ton of caddisflies. I think I wrote down from some notes 14,500, roughly, species in the world. Three hundred of those are out west. So we have a bunch out here. And I would say, even though we have so many out here, they're really underappreciated and understudied. I think folks come out here to fish big bugs. And the big foam, and at least in our area, the big mayflies, even the small mayflies, I feel like, out-fish or out-attract the anglers. Like, your PMDs will bring anglers to the water. They'll not necessarily go into the water for a caddisfly hatch, for most of the time. So it's kinda crazy how many we have and roughly how many fish are feeding on these caddisflies versus the mayflies and stoneflies. It's crazy that there's not more attention, not more pressure, pressure is a wrong word, not more interest in getting to know this caddis life cycle and what the fish are doing when they're feeding on different parts of it. And I'm guilty of it. Even if caddis are hatching, if you tell me that they're on a big stone, I am throwing out a big stone, because it's fun to fish. It's easy to see. And even if a caddisfly is gonna be more productive, I think that's just kind of the case across the board with a lot of folks that come out here.
But caddisflies are super cool. They're widely evolved, highly sophisticated. They fill a lot of niches. Every habitat, feeding strategy, different habits, they kind of do everything, which is really cool. And so, as we move into a changing water world and temperature world, they have a lot in place, a lot of tools in their tool belt to adapt and to still fill those niches, which is kind of cool. So I think if they're not important now, I think they're going to grow more important down the road in the angling community.
Tom: Yeah, I agree.
M.E.: So I think that's where they...
Tom: I agree with you. I think they're really underestimated. And I remember last fall, I was fishing in your backyard on the South Fork of the Snake with a guide from Three Rivers, and he told me to put on, you know, that's home of big foam, right? South Fork of the Snake is where you fish your Chubby Chernobyls and all your big foam hoppers and stuff. And he told me to put on two caddisflies, two caddies dries, and skate them, and then, you know, drop the rod and let them dead drift and skate them. And I was blown away by how productive that was. And there were a few caddisflies around, but there weren't any rises. But, boy, could we bring fish up to those caddisflies. So, yeah, they were small, 14 to 16. So, yeah, it's...
M.E.: Yeah, it's hard to put on those small flies when you're, like, "Oh, but there's big bugs on the water. I can see them."
Tom: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they work.
M.E.: It definitely takes a strong-willed angler to be like, "Okay, I'm gonna see the big bug, and I'm gonna put on a really tiny bug."
Tom: Yeah.
M.E.: But it's fun to, like, just, because you mentioned the trout diet and how much they're consuming of these caddisflies. I know Gary LaFontaine is kind of one of the caddisfly, if not the caddisfly guy who's connecting that science world with the angling world. It's funny. When I was in traffic this morning, I was so bent on proving that Gary LaFontaine is the Ron Swanson of caddisflies. Just, like, reading through his book, he's like, "You're doing it wrong. You're in the wrong place. You're fishing the wrong flies." Like, I just love his attitude in reading through his book. I mean, there's so much information in his "Caddisflies" book, more information than you could ever want or be able to absorb, but it's so interesting, his approach. And I believe, in his book, he said almost, like, of the caddisflies that are in the water, almost 45% of those become trout food. And so they're consuming a ton of the caddisflies that are available, which is just crazy.
So, like, definitely, he kind of structured that there's three points in their life cycle when they become vulnerable to that trout predation, and he called them hesitation, which I really like. And so he coaches the fishing to those hesitations because that's where you're gonna be most productive, which is really interesting. And it's just crazy how much of the trout diet could be made up of these caddisflies and how, I mean, arguably, little they're fished. But then, when you do fish them, when you do commit to fishing them, how productive they are. But, yeah, they kind of have, like, the perfect combination of things going in their favor to the trout predation, which isn't really positive for them, but they reproduce so parasitically that they've got enough to spare. But they have those high population densities. They have that vulnerability as individuals, so those moments of hesitation.
They have unique visual characteristics at different particular life stages, and so all these factors kinda come together to contribute to that trout selectivity and trout feeding. But still, yeah, they're still super underrated, and I think it's just because they're kind of hard to identify as adults on the water unless you really know what you're looking for. You're really having, if you're seeing adults, to kind of ask that question of, like, who is this? What is this bug? Unless you really know your stuff and maybe you have a portable scope on the stream with you, probably not, I would say you probably have snacks with you instead, but you really have to find that larva to be able to get a little bit more into kind of what's going on, what's hatching. And so that's kind of where you can see these mayflies and you can see these stoneflies, you're like, "That's that." But with these caddis, you kinda have to wanna dig a little deeper, literally going into the stream and picking up rocks and kind of kicking around and nosing around in the water. And so it just takes a little bit more than it does our two other very famous orders.
Tom: They're sneaky little bugs.
M.E.: They are sneaky. They're super sneaky. And just back to that highly evolved, with being able to make these cases, being able to hold their own as free-living caddis, they really lock down that camouflage from predators and physical protection. They're pretty good at what they do, until those moments of hesitation. And they're not great swimmers, so it kind of puts them perfectly in line for being a yummy trout snack.
But, yeah, kind of back to the entomology, you do have...you can see a couple of different people categorize caddis in different ways. So you have one who categorizes them in five categories, so your free-living, your saddle-case, your purse-case, tube-case, and retreat-making. And then you can even simplify that, and you have categories. You can categorize them into your primitive, so that would be your free-living, fixed-retreat makers, and tube-case makers. And so you have a lot going on in the water, a lot of things that you're looking out for and things that you may pick up a rock and be like, "Oh, it's just kind of a cluster of rocks." But if you are like, "But why? Why would rocks cluster together?" you're like, "Oh, that's, like, a saddle-case maker. That's why this stick has a hole in it." Like, it just takes asking kind of the next question. And so you really have to train your eye. If you're the angler on the water looking for these observations, you really have to train your eye to be a little bit more skeptical, to be like, "Why is this stick, like, hollowed out and has a tube in it?" Oh, it's because it's a case. Or just asking those extra questions.
But with that, they also use those cases for respiratory. So they kind of, like, undulate their body in their cases and bring that oxygen in. And so the case serves a lot of functions, which is really cool, but helps them really knock the ball out of the ballpark with survival in those very otherwise vulnerable larval stages. So they do pretty well, and they do go through complete metamorphosis. So that's your egg, larva, pupa, adult, which is different than your mayflies and stoneflies that do incomplete. And so they're pretty similar to moths and butterflies, genetically very similar, minus the Trichoptera have that hair wing and then have the aquatic immature stages, which is kinda cool, but they do have that silk, which helps them. Whether it's weaving their net to catch food or it's making that case or it's pupating in their cocoon, that silk is kind of the driving tool there that they use.
Kind of just blowing through this entomology part, they have five instars. So those are developmental stages. It can take anywhere, once the eggs are laid, it can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months to hatch. Then you have the larva, which they can be in larval stage from two months to two years. Here, they can go into diapause, depending on...and in the egg stage as well, because they can really find that perfect water temp, water quality to kind of live out their life. So they're super adaptable. Then you have the pupa stage, and they're usually in that two to three weeks, I think four weeks on some papers, where they incase themselves in that cocoon. They turn to bug soup. And then, eventually, they'll emerge. They'll chew their way out and emerge as a fully formed, sexually mature adult, and that's where we get the adults that fly around. It's super cool, like, the pros and the cons of complete metamorphosis. It's really interesting if you really dive into it.
And so, if you think about it, poor mayflies and stoneflies have to carry all these pieces and these adult parts that they don't really need with them as they're in those immature stages where caddisflies have figured out, "Hey, we don't need any of these, like, sexually mature parts. We don't need any of these wing pads. Let's be something different that's perfect for the space that we're in." I'm not sure this is how the conversation went in evolution. But in simplified terms, they're like, "Let's do without anything that we don't need right now, and let's just eat and live and breathe and grow bigger. And then we'll turn to soup, and then we'll have all those pieces when we need them," which is kind of genius. Like, can you imagine if humans did that? That would be...think of just how much easier everything would be if you're kind of larval blobs instead of with all these pieces. Like, we don't need thumbs when we're babies.
So, anyway, it's kind of a fun thing when you start looking at why complete metamorphosis versus that incomplete metamorphosis, and it's definitely a fun rabbit hole to get down if you're bored anytime. It's a fun trail to take. But they're easily recognized at that larval stage. So whether you're looking at the legs are shorter but well-developed, they usually have single claws, they don't have tails like mayflies and stoneflies do, they do have anal hooks on that last abdominal segment, like I said earlier, no development of wing pads, and they're super grubby. And then they have sort of cases they live in, or don't, but then that's easy to identify as well. And so, usually, that larval stage is where you would be most confident identifying a bug, unless you just know, for sure, "This is a Grannom. This is their Mother's Day hatch. I know this is what this is." But because they are harder to identify as adults, it's definitely, like I said earlier, easiest to ID them if you're looking through the water and looking for those cases and those larva.
Tom: Oh, I got a question for you.
M.E.: Yeah.
Tom: My entomology days are long in my past, and I often confuse free-living caddisflies with beetle larvae, because they look similar. Is it the little claspers on the end of the abdomen that caddisflies have?
M.E.: Yeah. So caddisflies have those anal hooks on the end.
Tom: Anal hooks, okay.
M.E.: Yeah, on that last abdominal bit.
Tom: And beetle larvae don't have the anal hooks.
M.E.: That's a good question. I hate to say that I'm not a beetle gal. I would say, at least aquatic beetles. I would say that you would be looking at those dorsal plates on the top of their thorax, looking for those single claws on the end of their well-developed arms. As far as...looking through my notes right now. It's so funny when you're like, "I'm an angler, therefore, I like these kinds of bugs."
Tom: Yeah, yeah.
M.E.: And so, yeah, I'm not much of a beetle gal.
Tom: All right, all right. We'll pass that one. We'll pass that one by. You talked about...
M.E.: I'll get back to you though. I can give an answer.
Tom: No, I can look it up too. We had a lot of entomology textbooks in my college days. I'll look it up, and we'll compare notes.
M.E.: Sounds great. The answer is out there.
Tom: Let's talk about those three moments of hesitation, because they're the important stages for the angler. So, what are those three periods of hesitation?
M.E.: Yeah. So, and I just love that you he uses the word hesitation. I've always been really fond of that just because I think it paints a really good picture of what's going on in their life stage that's making them vulnerable to that trout predation. And that first hesitation happens after they pupate, and it's usually hours before the main hatch, and it's when they're starting to kind of stage for that emergence. So they're in this kind of translucent pupal sac, and they have to pump it with gas. If they're ones that pop out kind of in the water column versus ones that are crawling out, so some species will do that, where they'll go to the slower water, but if they're ones that are kind of in the middle of the stream, like, where they were living, and they're in that really clear, thin pupal sac, they're pumping it with some gas to float up to that top of the surface of the water. And in that moment, it's not a huge moment, it's not the longest hesitation moment, but it is important, because it can key you in on what's about to happen with the hatch. It takes a little bit of timing. It takes a little bit of, like, going there, knowing that you're going to be fishing this caddisfly hatch eventually. So a little bit of preparation because you're not looking for those adults from the water, because these trout are still feeding at the bottom of the water column.
But as they, like, cut their way out of their case or their cocoon and they're in this little pupal sac and they're pumping it full of air so that they can float up to the top, they're dead drifting. And so, what's easier for a trout looking for food than a very vulnerable bug that's in a sac, trying to kind of get his bearings or her bearings and hesitation. So they're fully formed adults inside those thin little pupal skins, but still they haven't kind of made that transition so they can move up or have enough momentum to move up to that surface. And so that's a great time to fish maybe a fly with a little bit of weight and dead drift it, because it's gonna be kind of right there along the bottom. They're not great swimmers, not all of them. Most of them are not great swimmers. And so, yeah, you can do that upstream task, mend it, and then let it dead drift down past you and kind of in the zone of where you think the fish are feeding.
Tom: Do you think that's why flies like the Lightning Bug and the Duracell, those really flashy flies, do you think that's why they work because they look like a pupa inside an air bubble?
M.E.: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I would say so. I would say that air bubble that they're generating, it is such a unique visual characteristic that, absolutely, kind of those flies with a little bit of flash or even if you were to tie a Krystal Flash little bubble on the top of the thorax of a pheasant tail, I think even that would kind of have enough of a light color that it would attract those fish in that scenario.
Tom: And where does that gas come from? They're underwater. Where does the gas come from, M.E.?
M.E.: Yeah. I mean, they're still breathing, and so they're kind of creating, I would imagine, kind of, like, if we were to kind of blow air bubbles underwater, they're kind of utilizing that to fill up that sac. I'm not diving into, like, the hardcore science.
Tom: So they're taking the dissolved oxygen that they're breathing and turning it into a gas somehow.
M.E.: That's my guess. Like I said, this is where the line of my entomology. I haven't dived into the nitty gritty of it. But in my brain, like, that romanticized what's happening, that's exactly what I would like to imagine is happening.
Tom: Blowing bubbles, okay.
M.E.: Yeah, it's kind of blowing bubbles and, like, pumping it up.
Tom: Okay.
M.E.: Because they have, like, at this point, they have all their parts of an adult. So they've already switched those gills to those baculums. And so they're kind of pumping it up, and then they're going to float up. So that's kind of your first hesitation. They're gonna float up into that surface tension, that meniscus of the water. And I feel like we all learned in middle school science, the surface tension, you got a lot of just really unstable molecules. You have negatives and positives, and they're all kind of, like, fighting. And no one really knows what they're doing, and so you have this surface tension as a result.
And I was reading I think in LaFontaine's book. There's just so much good information in there. He's great. We love him. But he relates the pressure of breaking through that surface tension for these bugs would be the equivalent of a full-grown adult human trying to push through three feet of dirt, which is crazy.
And so the second area of concentration or the second hesitation is when they've...so they've raised up through the water typically. So this is kind of where it gets a little interesting and I feel like tons of room for debate. But Gary would say, we're on first-name basis, Gary would say, and I've read some other folks that would say, and I would almost say too just from my fishing experience, the fish aren't really eating the bugs as they move from bottom to top. Usually, that hit is right on the bottom, when it's right in the zone of the fish, and right when it hits that surface, a couple of centimeters, maybe an inch underneath that surface of the water. It's too much energy to eat something kind of mid-water column as it's moving up. And like I said, anyone can argue with that. Feel free.
Tom: Yeah. You know, it's...
M.E.: I'm more than happy.
Tom: It's interesting that both you observed that and LaFontaine observed that. And I can call him Gary because I actually knew him. He was a wonderful human being. He was a super, super guy. Yeah. Anyway, you know, people, when they see a fish taking an emerging caddis, it's often an explosive rise. And they say, "Oh, they're chasing the pupae up from the bottom because the pupae are popping up really quickly." If that doesn't happen, if the pupae don't pop up really quickly and the trout don't chase them, why do we often see fairly explosive rises, excuse me, during a caddis hatch? Do you know?
M.E.: Yeah, absolutely, totally. And that's a great question. I think that's where that common misconception has come from, that these caddis are the superbugs that are busting through, they're rocketing up from the bottom and those fish are chasing after them and exploding out of the water in this moment of perfect stereotypical romantic version of that fish exploding out of the water after that caddis. And, yeah, I mean, I feel like that's kind of the common conception of that, and if you really start to dive into it, that's not actually what's going on or that's what theorize is not actually going on.
So when they're in this surface tension, this is a longer hesitation than the first one when they're at the bottom of the surface, because they're having to chew their way out, break through that pupal skin, which is really cool because it actually creates a hole in the meniscus. So the adults actually never touch the water. Kind of crazy to wrap your brain around. And so that's definitely a "Wait, what?" So it kinda creates this hole in the surface tension, which makes this almost like portal for the adult fly to come out of easier than trying to bust through that tension.
And so there's a couple of moments, or in this moment, there's a couple of things that the trout are doing. They can either be on the bottom, looking for this...because as the pupae are in the water, in the current, at this surface tension level, they're still floating downstream, and they're stuck. They're having to kinda get out of the skin as they're moving downstream, as they're, like, perfectly exposed to everything that could eat them. And so the fish can be at the bottom, and they could be kind of just looking as these struggling bugs in that surface tension as they move overhead, and I think that's typically where they'll see one and they'll go up, and they can either roll on it and do that porpoise-like eat or they could explode on it when they're like, "Oh my god, there's a bug. Yum." And they, like, come flying up through the water, lots of momentum, it's moving overhead, it's a perfectly vulnerable bug, perfectly vulnerable snack. If they don't porpoise, they'll probably explode, and I think that's where we see that explosion more so than following the bug and rocketing out of the water.
Tom: Okay.
M.E.: Because the bugs aren't popping off the water. They're stuck. So they're not necessarily rocketing from the water to the air onto that transition, because there's this moment of hesitation. So that's where I think you get that explosion more so than the latter.
Tom: And I would think, when they're making that hole in the meniscus, I bet that's really very visible from down below because it's distorting the surface film a little bit.
M.E.: Yeah, absolutely.
Tom: Interesting, interesting.
M.E.: And it's making those kind of...I would imagine a bubble almost, reverse bubble, the absence of a bubble. When they're in and out of that surface tension, that meniscus, there's got to be some, like, kind of rings around them or some sort of light refraction, something going on that's creating kind of a bigger seam than the bug itself, I would think. If I were a trout underneath with much better eyesight than I have. I would think that's kind of their scene that they're seeing this little bit of movement, little tiny movement, because once they're getting out of that pupal skin, they're wiggling to kind of get everything ready to lift off. And so I think that's such an easy food for a trout. So they're at the bottom. We know they don't like spending a lot of energy. So that's a great time for them to feed and feed a lot or feed pretty regularly.
So you have those fish that are at the bottom. They're looking for bugs that are already in that meniscus, already in that surface tension passing over. They could follow it. Like, there's nothing saying that they might not feed at the bottom and then follow it up, but they're not gonna eat it as it's swimming. They're not ones that really chase in this capacity. They're gonna wait till it gets...because they know. I mean, I would hope they would know. To some extent, they know that that bug is gonna get stuck there in a couple of seconds. When it hits that level, there's this moment, this pause. So they're eating it then. They could probably explode on it there as well or do that porpoise roll that we love to see.
We also have fish that want to spend a little bit more energy. Typically, they're in slower water. So this is why they evocate it. They evocate this expenditure of energy, but they'll sit right below the surface. So they're in the current, like I said, usually in slower waters and eddies, they'll sit in that slower water on top of the current, right underneath the surface, and they'll kind of just, like, suck the pupa in or sucking the surface tension. So that's kind of how the three ways that trout feed on this second hesitation.
Tom: Okay.
M.E.: Yeah. And so, here, I would say fishing a semi-dry fly. something that kinda sits right at that in-between, in that liminal space of not necessarily out of the water dry, not necessarily under the water wet fly, kind of in that liminal space, that in-between space.
Tom: Kinda like LaFontaine's emerging caddis pupa, right?
M.E.: Yeah, exactly. It's a sparkling pupa, yeah. I mean, it's like he made this bug.
Tom: It's a deadly fly. It's one of my favorite flies.
M.E.: Yeah, absolutely. Also, I had a friend on the Henry's Fork tell me, he's like, "Okay, grab your elk hair caddis." Like, okay, great. So you grab your elk hair caddis. And he's like, "Look how great that elk hair is. It floats. It's super buoyant. It looks really good and beautifully tied." And you're like, "Yeah, it does. Like, yes, why are we doing this on the river right now?" And he's like, "Now cut it all off." I'm like, "Wait, what?"
Tom: Yep. Yeah, absolutely.
M.E.: Which can be a really productive pattern because you have that little knob of elk hair on the top, and then you have, like, the rest of... if it's an eck caddis or elk hair caddis, you have the rest of that tapered buggy body kind of sitting in that water, you have the elk hair kind of still sitting on top. So you have this really good...it's really on that line. And whenever I get time to tie, I'd love to do...because we love fishing the foam they got here for emerging mayflies. And one of our favorites. One of my favorites, because it's got that really great little hair post tuff on top and its really buggy body, and it really truly sits right there on that line, on that seam. I mean, why not fish fly in this caddis scenario? And you could make some little alterations to it, but really having it sit right there on this semi-dry plane would probably be pretty productive for the second one.
Tom: There isn't a lot of difference in the look of an emerging mayfly and an emerging caddisfly, you know. When it comes right down to it, there's a body, there's emerging wings, there's a shuck, and you can substitute one for the other. I do it all the time.
M.E.: Yeah, absolutely. And so that would be super productive. And really hitting these two zones at this stage in the hatch, hitting this first zone right on the bottom where you're fishing that weighted fly, now you're fishing whether it's a soft hackle that you've brought up to the surface tension or whether it's a fly you put there that you cast there, so be that emerger, in the surface tension. That's where you're at in the hatch right now. You're not jumping to adults yet.
Tom: Right.
M.E.: So one of my favorite hatches is the Mother's Day caddis hatch on the Henry's Fork. And it's funny, this might be a little bunny trail, but it's funny because you can be out there and you're like, "Oh, black caddis are flying around. I'm gonna tie on a black caddis." And you do, and the fish don't eat it. And you get heartbroken, and you're like, "Dang it, I'm gonna put a big bug on again. I'm gonna put on a worm and a Duracell." So you kind of move on. Some angler is easier than others. And so what's really fun about this hatch is just going back to those visual cues that the fish are keying into, these really unique visual cues.
With the Mother's Day hatch, you have this green, gooey, big sac on the back of those females, and it's really fun because you can fish on elk hair. You can fish the same size elk hair caddis, black body, same shape. You can put it right in front of the fish, right where they're feeding. But sometimes, unless it has that visual cue of that green egg sac on the back, they won't eat it. And it's really cool because it's just one of those nuances that you're like, "Okay, like, I'm doing everything right. What's going on?" And just being able to, like, catch a bug or know about this hatch and know that green sac on the back and making that slight tweak, that slight adjustment, can make the world a difference, I mean, from you not catching fish to catching fish.
And so it's really fun, making these little tweaks, making these observations, how far they can go in one of these blanket hatches. I mean, the Mother's Day caddis hatch is unreal. Like, in all my videos I've taken just on my phone, it looks like birds are floating around. And you're like, "No, those are caddis." Those are, like, size 16, size 14 caddis. It's really cool. I mean, you just can imagine how many food options the fish have. And so really being able to understand the slight details, being able to make those observations, and be willing to fish something different than just a dry.
Tom: So you're talking about the egg laying stage, right, on the Mother's Day caddis.
M.E.: Yes. Yeah.
Tom: So, is that the third area of hesitation?
M.E.: It's actually not. He doesn't classify fishing adults really as one of the hesitations. Just because you have to have so many and, like, the perfect place at the right time for them to key into one stage, in particular, that he actually doesn't even classify that as a stage, the flying around, their hopping on the water, their skittering or skating. I mean, you could definitely catch fish at this stage, but the productivity, it's kind of right place, right time with those. And so he's saying that the third hesitation is when the hatch is actually over. And you're fishing kind of these cripples, these kind of stent flies, bugs that get stuck in the surface film and as they move out of the back current and they fill up these eddies and these backwaters, he says, and I love this because I've seen it with my own eyes, so kind of the hatch happened, you cruise down to these backwaters and these eddies and these slow pools where you have these bubbles and foam on the water, and he would say that the third hesitation happens here, with those cripples that didn't make it, those flies that maybe got stuck back in the water tension and didn't have the tools to get out that are now making these little tiny separations in the foam. He would say that this is that next step.
Tom: Okay.
M.E.: And it's just a smorgasbord. It's just a cafeteria of bugs for fish. So it's super easy. And so it's kind of not just changing your flies at different times in the hatch but also changing your locations in the water you're fishing. So a couple of components there. So you find the slow water, you grab that kind of cripple bug, even maybe just the elk hair that you've used a little bit too much, and it sits a little bit lower in the water. And he's saying, just kind of plunk it on the water, tap it on the water, hit it fairly hard enough to break that foam and create a little circle, a little space for that fly to hit the water to separate that foam, yeah, and then find those sipping...I mean, they're not gonna be probably exploding on bugs at this point. It's probably gonna be sipping. So it's really easy food, slower water. And he would say that this is the third hesitation.
Tom: Boy, it's been a long time since I read his book. It's probably been 30 years since I read his book.
M.E.: It's so cool.
Tom: I got to back and read it again.
M.E.: It's so much fun.
Tom: I forgot everything. I forgot everything he taught me.
M.E.: I know. He tells you everything you have to do. It's pretty amazing. No, I just...yeah.
Tom: No, go ahead. Go ahead.
M.E.: Oh no, go ahead.
Tom: Well, what about the egg laying? I mean, these flies, these adults can live out of the water for up to a month, and they migrate, and you see these great clouds of caddisflies and nothing on the water. Nothing on the water. Nothing on the water for, you know, night after night after night. And then they finally mate and come back to lay eggs. What about that stage?
M.E.: Yeah. So I would say he's not categorizing it, or I wouldn't categorize it as, like, a big episode, a big opportunity to catch fish. If you've seen the one fish kind of sipping on caddis, yes, I would cast to him. But it's not something to kinda plan for. Those three moments are kind of more of that strategy of, like, "Okay, I'm planning for this before the hatch. This kind of right after, this is a little longer, so I'll spend a little bit longer here, fishing these emergers and not on liminal space. And then I'm going to go down to the backwater after the hatch and do this." And so those would be, like, the three big to strategically plan for.
Tom: Okay, okay.
M.E.: But then, as far as, like, the occasional fish feeding on the adults, I mean, they're skittering and skating across the water, so in the right scenario, you probably will find feeding fish on that. As well as the egg-laying females, some of which will just drop, like, pop on the water and drop their eggs, some of which will actually swim back down through the water column and lay their eggs, deposit their eggs. So you do have those, like, kind of swimming caddis imitations. And I would say that would be...those are great supplemental or, like, side opportunities to fish a caddis. It wouldn't be, like, I guess, when you think about fishing hatch, and you're like, "Okay." Like, I don't think about the Brown Drake hatch. You know, like, "Okay, from this time to this time, I'm fishing spinner. From this time to this time, I'm fishing emergers." Again, like, that kind of mentality, I think, is better and more efficient for those three hesitations. All that to say, if you find the fish sipping on caddisflies and adults are working, keep doing it until it doesn't work anymore.
Tom: Yeah. It's interesting because you see these clouds of thousands and thousands of caddisflies night after night after night in a lot of rivers that I fish, and you don't see great quantities of egg layers on the water. And they have to do it. They have to do it at some point.
M.E.: Yeah. I mean, not all...
Tom: But you're right, it's not as big an opportunity. I mean, I have seen times where caddis are all over the water and they're laying eggs and fish are really, really chomping them. But it's not as common, yeah.
M.E.: No. Yes. And it's funny because I have a beautifully labeled caddis fly box, with a lot of beautifully tied caddisflies. And the amount out here, it's just kind of also just an ignorance of not going to the water in hopes of ignoring the big bugs and focusing on caddis. You kind of just are...we're opportunistic. Like, we are gonna fish what the fish are eating, whether you're like, "Okay, I'm gonna try some PMDs. Nope, it's not that. I'm gonna try some golden stones. Nope, it's not that." And so, yeah, it's kind of interesting, and I think the moments when I just happen to see a fish, I happen to be kind of moving through my fly boxes to see what they're eating on because I've already identified bug A, B, and C on the water, and I try a caddisfly, an adult caddisfly, they may eat it, and I'm starting to learn as I'm diving more into caddisflies and how they relate to angling. I got really lucky if I caught a fish on that adult. And I don't ride it off. I don't underappreciate it.
And then when I feel like, more often than not, when that bug is getting...and unbeknownst to me, when that bug is kind of getting underneath that surface maybe when that fish is feeding, and so I might be stepping into a part of the hatch that I didn't even intentionally try to hit. I might have just been really lazy with keeping my elk hair caddis up on top of the water. And so, I don't know. There's definitely some more challenges, I feel like, that arise if you really dive into fishing caddis, especially amongst all the other bugs that we have on the water, especially out here. I mean, it would take a very strong individual to, like you were saying with your story at the top of the show, like, leaving the big bug and tying on a caddis, and you're being, like, "Really? Two single dries? Okay." Yeah. I don't know. It's fine. It's definitely a conversation, I feel like, at least out here in the west, we should be talking about more. I feel like it's kind of a generational gap in a lot of ways with, like, the entry of the synthetic materials in the market. It's so much fun to tie those. It's so much fun to fish those. It's fun to see how big you can get away with 9-millimeter foams for a Snake River cutthroat. Absolutely. Why would I tie on a 14 elk hair caddis that my grandfather tie, you know? I think it's just the change in generations and ages and kind of...I mean, I feel like we're really influenced as different material enters the game in terms of time, which you don't think about.
Tom: Yeah. You young kids and your big foam flies. Actually, I love them too. You know.
M.E.: It's fun.
Tom: Yeah. I mean, it's great because there's so much more now than there was in LaFontaine's days. You can still fish those precise imitations of emerging caddis pupa, but you can fish a big foam fly, and that's what's fun about fly fishing today is there's lots more ways of doing it.
M.E.: Yeah, there's so many ways to get a good day on the water and get to know the water just in different capacities. But it's fun. I mean, I definitely think as things shift out here for water and snow pack and all of those pieces, I think we'll be shifting maybe a little bit more back to these more natural patterns or these more I wanna say primitive, but these a little bit more like traditional patterns and even focusing on more of these caddis, I would think. Because, I mean, even on the work, we've seen a huge decline in PMDs, and we're having to ask why, we're having to ask, "Okay, what now?" And so it's kind of just we're seeing this game changing a little bit and maybe going back to the basics. That's a better word than primitive. Basics, there we go. And, yeah. So I think, definitely, this is all really good information to at least know and start to practice or at least try it out next time you're on the water. And we have so many opportunities to fish different caddis out here in the west. We have a lot of really fun bugs and your green rock worms and your Mother's Day caddis, your spotted sedge. We've just got a lot of really good opportunities out here, hatches that we really have April through October, November. So huge, huge windows a time that we can be focusing or we can be trying out some caddis patterns.
Tom: Do you notice? I've often noticed that cloudy days, you seem to see more mayflies and the caddisflies seem to hatch better on sunny days. In fact, days with variable cloudiness, when the sun comes out, the caddis pop, and then when the sun goes behind a big cloud, the caddis stop popping and the mayflies hatch. Do you see that? Do you see that in the west as well?
M.E.: Yes. Actually, we see that a little bit, definitely with, like, the BWOs, the blue-winged olives, and the mayfly world just at this time of year, so it's fresh on the brain. Perfect example of that. On those kind of cloudier days, you're seeing much more vibrant hatch of blue-winged olives than we do on a sunny day. And I think probably that cooler weather, finding that, like, perfect little temp zone, and then you'll see on, like, the brighter days, you'll see a bunch of caddis. Out here, they seem a little less. Like, if a cloud were to come over, you wouldn't see them anymore. I feel like a little less of that, but I feel like it would just be super river- and probably species-specific there.
Tom: Yeah, it could very well be the caddisflies that I see maybe favor sunlight more than others.
M.E.: Yeah. But it's fine. I mean, it gets you excited. It gets your blood pumping, and it gets your heart going when you get to the river and you just see a ton of caddisflies crawling on rocks. I always...it's super fun, if you don't see them, if you just happen to not see them, but going over to some, like, close by vegetation and shaking the trees, and they're gonna come off. You're going to see what's out there and what's happening. It's a little more heartbreaking when you get on the water, you're like, "Oh my gosh, this is gonna be an amazing hatch. We won't be able to keep the fish off." And then the fish aren't really feeding on them or they're at least not feeding when you're throwing dries at their faces. They're like, "Oh, no. No, thank you. I'm feeding on [inaudible 1:33:23]."
Tom: Yeah, yeah.
M.E.: And so it can definitely be a little...if you kinda jump the gun there, it's easy to get a little heartbroken.
Tom: It's always easy to get heartbroken when you're looking for a hatch, isn't it?
M.E.: Oh, yeah. Absolutely, especially when you're like, "No, it happened this time last year, and they're there." And then you get there, and they've blown the water out. And the water is, like, calling you, like, shoot.
Tom: Yeah, yeah.
M.E.: Guess I'm fishing worms.
Tom: Yeah.
M.E.: But it's fun. I mean, with caddisflies, in general, and with all the variable water we have out here in the west, with the still water, there's warmer water, there's high elevation water, your mountainous streams and freestone streams, you really got different caddisflies in all of them. And so there's a whole bunch of opportunities there. And so it's really fun and they're fairly easy to find. Like, it's not like you pick up a rock and that big Plecoptera, that big stonefly, crawls away or falls off to the water, and it's like, "See you later." They're still there, and so it's an easy observation to make on the water if you're willing to get your hands wet...
Tom: Right.
M.E.: ...and know kind of what you're looking for.
Tom: Yeah, at least you know the size. You don't know what color the emergers are going to be or the adults, but you can get an idea at least of the size of the caddisflies that are going to be hatching.
M.E.: Yeah, absolutely. So I mentioned the Mother's Day caddis, that's Brachycentrus, that we see kind of in the springtime out on the Henry's Fork. And it was so funny, we were fishing the other day and just obtained a picture of how many must have been in the water or how lucky I got, I don't know. I would say how many are in the water more than luck. But I was fishing a worm, and I kept...
Tom: Shame on you.
M.E.: Every time I brought the worm up... I know, right? Oh my gosh. It's so hard not to...
Tom: I know.
M.E.: ...when the water is off color and the big brown just, they're like, "Yeah, I'll take a worm." But every time I bring that dang worm up to make sure my hook was good and make sure it wasn't tangled, to check my dap, then I'd be like, "Why aren't they eating this? What have you done?" There's always that Brachycentrus that's, to me, making caddis stuck, skewered on the hook. And at first, I was like, "Oh, I just caught, like, an empty case." And then I would pull the case off, and that poor little bugger was just absolutely skewered on that huge wire worm hook. And so just to kind of paint a picture of how many there were probably under there that I kept catching them, and they're on top of the rocks and they're kind of all over the bottom of the water column, in that sediment. And, yeah, it was, like, man, this is, I'm sorry, a lot of casualties today, a lot of Brachycentrus casualties.
Tom: Yeah, I hooked a couple yesterday morning.
M.E.: Yeah, yeah, it's funny,
Tom: Brachycentrus. Same. But we have similar hatch, the Mother's Day in the east. We call it the apple caddis or the shadfly. There's lots of different terms, but we have a lot of 'em here as well in the east.
M.E.: Yeah. It's a super fun hatch, and like I said, sometimes just making that small adjustment of adding that green delving on the back or some sort of green spot on the back can make a huge difference...
Tom: I'm gonna try that. I'm gonna try that.
M.E.: ...especially for a hatch like that.
Tom: I haven't done that.
M.E.: Oh, yeah. It makes a huge difference. And, yeah, it's fun. Especially, usually, at this time in the season, we're getting some of our first dry fly eats, and so you just can't beat it. It's just really fun to be able just to go from a cold, wet, snowy winter where we're fishing subsurface or, God forbid, fishing midges, tiny, tiny, little midges on top of the water and maybe getting an eat, to going to fish, like, 16, 14 Mother's Day caddis. It makes you feel like, "Oh my gosh, spring's here. Summer's here almost."
Tom: Yeah, yeah.
M.E.: And so, yeah, that's really exciting. And it's just fun. Like, even...so we took a sample out of our Flat Creek site behind the store. I mean, we've been taking some samples for our fly fishing 101 courses that have been happening on Saturdays just to show folks what's in the water. And it's amazing just taking in the same spot right outside of the store what we've been finding. And I mean, a lot of caddis, and it's just really cool to find those little cases. And I feel like some folks never even put two and two together that that was intentional.
Tom: Yeah, yeah.
M.E.: And so it's a fun bug to find in the water. I always get really excited when I find them. And it's easy if you're out for a hike and you cross over a little spring creek, and you can find some there. I don't know. It's just fun. It's really fun. They're like little architects, their case-making.
Tom: We love 'em. Well, M.E., thank you so much for taking the time today. This has been fascinating. And I got some ideas on fly tying and fishing caddisflies that I'm gonna go back and experiment with pretty damn soon, like tomorrow morning. So I really appreciate you taking the time and sharing your knowledge about caddisflies with us.
M.E.: Yes, absolutely. It's fun. Yeah, I encourage everyone to ask the next questions and to dive in a little bit deeper. They're really fun an order to dive into and learn about. And then once you start...I mean, there's just so many rabbit holes you can go down with caddisflies. So there's plenty of information for even the most bored-prone folk.
Tom: Yeah, absolutely.
M.E.: And it's a great way to really enhance your angling CV, your resume, your repertoire of bugs you can fish, your tools in your tool belt, and really having this dialed down and kind of...I mean, I feel like we're so quick to jump to the dry and throw the dry on and fish a dry. But just being able to, I don't know, dive in a little deeper and fish some other parts of that life cycle, I don't know, it's just a great tool to have in your tool belt, all that to say.
Tom: It is, it is. I urge everyone to do it.
M.E.: Just a great tool to have in your tool belt as an angler.
Tom: Yep.
M.E.: Yeah. Well, thanks, Tom. I really appreciate it.
Tom: All right, M.E. Thank you. We've been talking to M.E. Sorci, the manager of Orvis Jackson Hall and experienced angler and entomologist. So appreciate it.
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