How to Fish a Caddis Hatch

However, not every hatch has to be treated like an epic event. There are plenty of fantastic and often overlooked insect hatches that are more like minor league baseball games, as they’re easy to find and always provide for a good time.

Instead of a massive, once-a-year explosion of insects, these hatches happen almost every single day throughout the spring, summer, and fall and can simply be relied upon to produce. One of the most prevalent and perhaps most important of these unswerving hatches is the emergence of the reliable and frankly beloved caddisfly.

What is a Caddisfly?

Also called sedge flies or rail flies, caddis are small semi-aquatic and terrestrial insects similar to a moth. In fact, most folks actually mistake caddis for moths as the tiny folded-winged insects have a habit of fluttering around lights and sticking to window screens. However, caddis are actually members of their own order called Trichoptera, which are related but distinctly different from moths and butterflies in that they’re born in water, which puts them right at the top of a trout’s menu.

Though there are some infamous river-blanketing caddis hatches, such as the Mother’s Day Caddis hatch on the Yellowstone River, there are actually over 1,500 different species of caddis spread across North America. Most of these species hatch in small bursts, with a different species appearing almost every day during the spring, summer, and fall. While these caddis can be varied sizes and colors and can emerge at different times of the day, almost all of them still go through the same basic life-cycle.

Born on the beds of rivers and fast-flowing streams as tiny larvae, juvenile caddisflies emerge from eggs and then quickly construct their own protective casings from rocks, grains of sand, and plant matter, which they build around themselves like a protective cocoon. When they reach adulthood, the small larvae shed their shell and then swim to the water’s surface, where they emerge, dry their wings, and flutter to trees and waterside brush. Soon they fly back out over the water where they breed and eventually die, falling back onto the river’s surface.

With so many different species of caddisfly crawling, swimming, flying, and dying at different times of the day and year, the insects become a regular and important part of trout’s diet throughout their entire lifecycle. Hungry trout will take any chance they have to feed on caddis—whether they’re scouring the bottoms for pupas, chasing rising emergers to the surface, or crushing the flapping adults on the top of the water—the presence of caddis offers consistent opportunities for anglers to catch a lot of fish.

Best Caddis Fly Patterns

There are a ton of different caddis patterns that cover a variety of the water column. You can use heavier, weighted caddis nymphs like the Corded Caddis or the Beadhead Pupa for hunting trout that are cruising along the bottom. Weighted and unweighted Soft Hackle patterns or pupa patterns like Baltz’s Pupa are great for fishing mid-water column or when fish are feeding on caddis just below the surface.

Dry flies for caddis range from large and bulky like the Elk Hair Caddis, which ride high in the water and are perfect for fishing in fast water or when trout are keyed in on flying bugs, to slimmer profiled patterns like the Slow Water Caddis. These flies are great for sluggish currents and clear, still pools, as are emerger patterns like the Spotlight Caddis, which are also fantastic options when you’re seeing fish rise but aren’t seeing a lot of bugs flying around.

Beneath the Surface

There are two different ways to catch trout on caddisflies beneath the surface, nymphing and swinging. Both can be incredibly effective ways to catch fish on caddisflies when you aren’t seeing any surface activity and when you aren’t sure whether there are any fish around. Nymphing is more effective in deeper water, during colder weather or any time trout are less reactive. Swinging is a great way to prospect for fish in warmer water, as you can cover a lot of water and find more active trout.

Nymphing anglers have a few different options as far as techniques are concerned. You can fish with multiple flies drifted under an indicator, which is a great technique for fishing deep holes or in slower stretches of water directly beneath rapids. It’s a simple technique that entails placing a strike indicator on your line so that your flies will drift at roughly half-again as deep as the water you’re fishing (e.g. if you’re fishing 2 feet of water, place the indicator at 3 feet, in 6 feet, place the indicator at 9 feet, etc.) Add a single caddis nymph or a pair of nymphs, then cast the rig slightly upstream of your target spot. Make an upstream mend to let the flies sink and then allow them to drift downstream, setting the hook anytime the indicator twitches, hesitates, or dunks.

If you’re fishing in shallower, faster water or on a small stream, it’s often more effective to fish a single, heavier caddis nymph on a tight line. This is done by casting the fly directly into the water with a short cast and then raising the rod tip above the water and following the drifting nymph’s progress with your rod tip as it bounces along the bottom. Set the hook hard anytime the fly suddenly stops, or anytime you feel a tug.

Swinging caddis patterns is a very productive way to find active fish or to start getting a few bends in your rod before the hatch really kicks off. The best way to set up for it is by tying an unweighted soft hackle or caddis nymph to the end of your leader and then adding 6 to 10 inches of tippet to the curve of the hook. Tie a second unweighted or lightly weighted caddis nymph to this line as a dropper, and you’re ready to fish.

Swing the flies by casting slightly across and downstream at roughly a 45-degree angle. Make a small mend to allow the flies to sink and then tighten up the line so the flies rise in the water column like a caddis nymph swimming to the surface. Keep the line tight and allow the flies to drift across the current in a “swing” similar to what you do when Spey casting until they hang directly below you. Once the flies stop moving, take a step downstream and repeat the casting and swinging until you feel the hard jerk of your flies getting slammed by a hungry trout.

On The Top

Seeing a trout rocket up from beneath the water to explode on an escaping insect or seeing a fish cruise up and daintily inhale a drifting bug is one of the most iconic and exhilarating moments in fly fishing. You can have the best of both worlds when fishing caddis dry flies, though the techniques vary, with the best method depending on the fish’s mood and what you’re seeing happen on the water.

When fishing in slow water or when you’re seeing trout rise slowly to the surface to gently eat a drifting caddis, your best bet is to fish with a slow-drifting presentation. Using a slim profile caddis pattern paired with an emerger as a dropper, cast across and slightly upstream of where you see fish feeding, then make a series of upstream mends to ensure that your drifting bugs are moving at the same speed as the current. Keep your eyes on your lead fly as it enters the strike zone and set hard as soon as you see a fish eat it or anytime you see it vanish beneath the surface after an unseen trout has taken the emerger.

During larger caddis hatches, when fishing in faster water, or when big caddisflies are hatching and having trouble taking off, you can have a lot of luck by making your dry fly stand out. While you can do this by twitching the fly as it drifts. Usually, you’ll have the most action by skating your fly across the surface of the water. To do this, tie a bulky caddis pattern on your leader that rides high in the water and then cast it down and across the river like you would with a soft-hackle, wet fly, or streamer. As soon as the fly lands, make a slight downstream mend in your line to maintain constant tension, then raise your rod tip to about chest height. As the line comes tight, gently start flicking the rod tip back and forth so that the fly “skates” across the surface leaving a slight V-wake behind it as it moves, imitating a caddisfly having trouble taking off. Keep a good grip on the rod as the fly moves across the water because skating caddisflies usually lead to some truly epic and explosive strikes.

Having a Flutter

Fly fishing is always going to be a bit of a gamble. You head down to the river with all your gear only to find out that the bugs you were counting on just aren’t hatching leaving you with few other options other than going home skunked.

But that’s where the true beauty of a caddis hatch lies. With so many different species hatching at different times of the year and at diverse times of the day, you can almost always count on at least a few caddis being around and a few trout being willing to eat them, subsurface or topwater. Caddis are steadfast and dependable and just like your favorite sports team, they always come through for you right when you need a win.

Feature image via Andrew Miller.