Fountains of Youth – Classic trout flies that have withstood the test of time … flies that remain “forever young”
by Rusty Dunn
If you were a self-respecting caddisfly, you would be justified to have a giant chip on your shoulder. Recognition of your importance by fly anglers was painfully slow in coming. Ever since that old goat Isaak Walton charmed everyone in 1653 with his sweet talk about “the country life”, those glamorous but feeble mayflies have been the darlings of the fly fishing world. The classic angling literature goes on and on about mayfly magnificence. ‘Mayfly this’ … ‘mayfly that’ … mayfly über alles. You’d think there wasn’t another insect in the trout stream! Thanks to some observant authors in the 1970s, however, you’ve been emancipated. Caddisflies today are recognized as an important – and often the most important – food source of trout. Educated anglers now watch your every move, tweet incessantly on your comings and goings, and fashion seductive flies to match your handsome appearance.
The above diatribe is, of course, a fancy, but the importance of caddisflies to fly fishing was seriously underestimated for centuries. Caddis weren’t totally ignored, but they were neglected relative to the mayflies. The first unambiguous caddis imitation was in James Chetham’s The Angler’s Vade Mecum (1681). His Greentail fly imitates a grannom (a Brachycentrus species) common in Britain. British authors from the 17th to the 20th century, including such greats as Walton (1653), Bowlker (1747), Ronalds (1849), Theakston (1853), Halford (1886), and Skues (1910), discussed caddisflies and offered some patterns, but none drew special attention to them. Others, however, wrote persuasive testimonials about the awesome power of a caddis emergence. For example, Rev. E. Powell wrote in The Country Sportsman,
“A hatch of grannom is a sad affliction, for it is generally so brief that there is little time to think, and the trout seem to find it so satisfying that they are difficult to stir for the rest of the day. One moment you are flogging an apparently troutless river, and the next the whole surface and the air above it look as if they were charged with bits of minutely chopped hay, and the fish are flicking their tails in every direction. Speed is everything then. You must know what to do and do it at once. He who wavers is lost. It will be all over before he has begun.”
American authors were asleep at the wheel too. Theodore Gordon discussed caddisflies but only briefly, because “To me, the ephemera [mayflies] are the most interesting.” Preston Jennings’ landmark book on aquatic insects (A Book of Trout Flies, 1935) devotes 53 pages to mayflies and 8 to caddis. Art Flick’s Streamside Guide (1947) was “the bible” of fly selection in the East for decades, but it included zero caddis patterns. Ernie Schwiebert’s Matching the Hatch (1955) seems comprehensive, but look closely … 85 pages of mayflies and 4 of caddisflies. If fly fishing luminaries thought little of the caddis, how were the rest of us supposed know any better? We are led like sheep by the media, but in this case the shepherds were loafing.
Affirmative action for caddisflies began in the 1970s. The first chapter of Leonard Wright’s excellent 1972 book Fishing the Dry Fly as a Living Insect was titled “The Fly That Fishermen Forgot”. It was about caddisflies. Larry Soloman’s and Eric Leiser’s The Caddis and the Angler (1977) was the first angling book to discuss caddisflies thoroughly. Four years later, Gary LaFontaine published his magnum opus, Caddisflies (1981), which is a veritable encyclopedia of caddisfly biology as it relates to trout. LaFontaine’s most famous caddis imitations are his Deep Sparkle Pupa and Emergent Sparkle Pupa, which represent early and late stages of a caddis emergence, respectively.
Copyright 2019, Rusty Dunn
LaFontaine Emergent Sparkle Pupa
The Emergent Sparkle Pupa of the photo is tied in colors of the American grannom, a group of Brachycentrus species common in all trout waters.
| Hook: |
Wet fly, light wire, #14 – #16 |
| Thread: |
Brown-olive, 8/0 |
| Underbody: |
One third olive sparkle yarn plus two thirds bright green dubbing, mixed together and dubbed roughly |
| Overbody: |
Medium olive sparkle yarn, tied as a loose veil surrounding the body |
| Wing: |
Dark brown deer body hair |
| Head: |
Brown marabou strands or brown fur |
LaFontaine Emergent Sparkle Pupa
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Last Updated: February 8, 2019 by Drew Kasel
by Rusty Dunn
If you were a self-respecting caddisfly, you would be justified to have a giant chip on your shoulder. Recognition of your importance by fly anglers was painfully slow in coming. Ever since that old goat Isaak Walton charmed everyone in 1653 with his sweet talk about “the country life”, those glamorous but feeble mayflies have been the darlings of the fly fishing world. The classic angling literature goes on and on about mayfly magnificence. ‘Mayfly this’ … ‘mayfly that’ … mayfly über alles. You’d think there wasn’t another insect in the trout stream! Thanks to some observant authors in the 1970s, however, you’ve been emancipated. Caddisflies today are recognized as an important – and often the most important – food source of trout. Educated anglers now watch your every move, tweet incessantly on your comings and goings, and fashion seductive flies to match your handsome appearance.
The above diatribe is, of course, a fancy, but the importance of caddisflies to fly fishing was seriously underestimated for centuries. Caddis weren’t totally ignored, but they were neglected relative to the mayflies. The first unambiguous caddis imitation was in James Chetham’s The Angler’s Vade Mecum (1681). His Greentail fly imitates a grannom (a Brachycentrus species) common in Britain. British authors from the 17th to the 20th century, including such greats as Walton (1653), Bowlker (1747), Ronalds (1849), Theakston (1853), Halford (1886), and Skues (1910), discussed caddisflies and offered some patterns, but none drew special attention to them. Others, however, wrote persuasive testimonials about the awesome power of a caddis emergence. For example, Rev. E. Powell wrote in The Country Sportsman,
“A hatch of grannom is a sad affliction, for it is generally so brief that there is little time to think, and the trout seem to find it so satisfying that they are difficult to stir for the rest of the day. One moment you are flogging an apparently troutless river, and the next the whole surface and the air above it look as if they were charged with bits of minutely chopped hay, and the fish are flicking their tails in every direction. Speed is everything then. You must know what to do and do it at once. He who wavers is lost. It will be all over before he has begun.”
American authors were asleep at the wheel too. Theodore Gordon discussed caddisflies but only briefly, because “To me, the ephemera [mayflies] are the most interesting.” Preston Jennings’ landmark book on aquatic insects (A Book of Trout Flies, 1935) devotes 53 pages to mayflies and 8 to caddis. Art Flick’s Streamside Guide (1947) was “the bible” of fly selection in the East for decades, but it included zero caddis patterns. Ernie Schwiebert’s Matching the Hatch (1955) seems comprehensive, but look closely … 85 pages of mayflies and 4 of caddisflies. If fly fishing luminaries thought little of the caddis, how were the rest of us supposed know any better? We are led like sheep by the media, but in this case the shepherds were loafing.
Affirmative action for caddisflies began in the 1970s. The first chapter of Leonard Wright’s excellent 1972 book Fishing the Dry Fly as a Living Insect was titled “The Fly That Fishermen Forgot”. It was about caddisflies. Larry Soloman’s and Eric Leiser’s The Caddis and the Angler (1977) was the first angling book to discuss caddisflies thoroughly. Four years later, Gary LaFontaine published his magnum opus, Caddisflies (1981), which is a veritable encyclopedia of caddisfly biology as it relates to trout. LaFontaine’s most famous caddis imitations are his Deep Sparkle Pupa and Emergent Sparkle Pupa, which represent early and late stages of a caddis emergence, respectively.
Copyright 2019, Rusty Dunn
LaFontaine Emergent Sparkle Pupa
The Emergent Sparkle Pupa of the photo is tied in colors of the American grannom, a group of Brachycentrus species common in all trout waters.
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Category: Fly Tying, Rusty Dunn Fountains of Youth
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