New Umpqua Caddis
We are excited about our Poly Fluff Caddis being in the season's new fly line-up from Umpqua.
It was the early seventies and Barry was in charge of the fly program and new products for the H. L. Leonard Rod Company in Midland Park, NJ, when Hank Leonhard walked into Barry's office and showed him some streamers tied with a new material called Hi-Viz. This material would forever change the way Barry thought about using synthetic materials for flies.
Hank and Barry became good friends and years later Hank and his wife, Mary, moved from Long Island to our fishing creek valley. Hank continued to tie fresh and saltwater patterns with Hi Viz, which eventually became known as Poly Fluff and we sold many of the patterns during the years we had our fly shop and now in our online store
– the material made great wings on dry flies, pupa shucks, spinner wings, beetle wings, minnow imitations in fresh and salt, it seemed like the possibilities were endless, but let's get back to the Umpqua caddis pattern.
We think caddis hatches can be more difficult to match than a mayfly hatch. It's not that we can't create a natural looking fly, it's making our fly behave like the natural. In many cases, like the popcorn caddis, the pupa is jet propelled to the surface, breaks out of the water and is instantly airborne in the adult stage. You can often find the newborn adults bouncing on the surface and trout literally jumping out of the water attempting to get them. When we see this activity, we try to quickly put our poly fluff caddis in the exact spot where the trout is feeding. hoping he will think he missed the bug and perhaps come again.
A skittering adult caddis laying eggs on the surface can certainly get a trout's attention and when this is happening, we sometimes try to twitch or skitter our fly. It's a difficult behavior to match. On the other hand some adult caddis will return to the water and break the surface in order to deposit eggs below. These caddis will sometimes crawl down the legs of our waders to get to the water or will lay eggs on our waders. Once the egg laying process is over, the adult flies can be found spent on the surface again available to the trout.
Western rivers, like the Bighorn, are famous for caddis hatches and our poly fluff caddis in black or tan is the perfect imitation. Here on Fishing Creek, in northeastern Pennsylvania, we have a heavy caddis hatch in the spring. But a caddis pattern is always a good choice to use when prospecting the water and looking for a fish because these insects are around all year and you can bet the fish will be looking for them, so be sure to have a few caddis flies in various colors and sizes with you always.
Sage R8 Fly Rods
We've been fishing the R8's for several months and have used them from Argentina to Ireland to right here at home and have to say that at first we wondered what can Sage do to come up with a better rod than what they already have. Well, hello R8. Take a look inside the Sage plant in Bainbridge Island, WA, right next to the aerospace industry headquarters and see what keeps Sage the leader in fly rod design and sales.
That's it for this week. As always, thanks for following along with us. We're taking next week off, no blog. Barry and Cathy are in Africa. We are in summertime conditions here. Thankfully water temps are good, but our fish and guides are taking a break. We are due for rain so fishing will pick up again soon. Hope you're getting out to fish. Have a great week. Brooke.