I often look back on the beginning years as a point where fly shop owners, behind their alter-like counter, held a presence liken to that of a deity in my eyes. I once thought with juvenile glee that these sole individuals held the answers to cure all of my trout-less days trapped within those diligently filled bins of fly patterns. This is not to say that some do in fact harbor this ability. However, during those early moments and largely unbeknownst to me until much later, it was not uncommon that I was often misled into the purchasing of lower trout-catching-potential flies.
The first incident to besiege my pursuit of trout, not to mention my wallet, is as clearly ingrained in my memory as that of my first fly rod purchase. Year two of my trout angling obsession found me chasing wild browns in Western Maryland on the Savage River. I wholeheartedly believe that a certain level of prudence is needed when tackling any hatch, and that accepting the advice of, let us say a veteran patron of the industry, was as levelheaded a decision as a beginner could make.
So, after stumbling into one of only two fly shops in that part of the state, and at asking the proprietor through dying-caddis encrusted gums ‘What are they biting on?’ I was handed a handful of high-floating elk hair or deer hair caddis patterns. That day I sauntered out of the shop with my eyes’ clouded with visions of rising trout as long as my leg swallowing the freshly tied and brutishly orange colored size 12 flies.
Cast after fruitless drift after frustrated hour and those introductory patterns at $2 each seemed to serve as much purpose in my box as a poorly chewed dog’s toy. It wasn’t until the sodden fly sunk just beneath the surface did it reveal its trout catching return. Even then these hair-winged patterns only scored a smattering of trout to net, and often drifted untouched through countless runs with only a half hearted glance from a string of trout—the same trout that I stood watching as their smooth backs continually crested the surface, feeding on everything else that drifted in front of them. I was missing something in the middle of a prolific hatch that had trout rising all over the river, and it infuriated me to no end.
This lasted for another season with countless other shop owners offering suggestions much in the way as the aforementioned. With only one addition to my technique and two more patterns—the X-Caddis and Deep Sparkle Pupa—coming from owner and operator, Theaux Le Gardeur of Backwater Anglers in Monkton, Maryland, I was still left largely in the dark about caddisflies. I began to loath their yearly hatch and pestering afternoon presence in my face. That is, until my hands fell onto to the spine of a hefty book.
A long time has passed since Gary LaFontaine exposed the angling community to his thoughts on the importance of Trichoptera (Caddisflies) in our North American rivers and streams. With his now classic 1981 release of Caddisflies—what I consider the holy grail of this insect order and my savior from any further poor purchases and streamside performances—LaFontaine turned a once abashed angler’s view of the tent-winged adults from nothing more than a nuisance insect to an unprecedented new direction for targeting trout.
However, I believe that there still remains confusion or perhaps preconceived misconceptions among remote pockets of fly anglers of exactly how to go about successfully fishing the three major stages or as LaFontaine aptly called them, “hesitations” during a caddisfly hatch. In order for me to cover in such great detail as Lafontaine did of each species and with all of their diversity contained within, it would take months if not years. I hope to merely quell some of these misunderstandings and to possibly persuade those of you that look down upon caddisflies to alter this view slightly, through the offering of some specific trout producing techniques, patterns, and useful dribble I have picked up along the way as I grew stronger in my belief that caddisflies rank well above mayflies in importance.