2026 October Fly Tying

 

Fly Tying

Early in September, our esteemed president, Kevin Thomason, sent a number of club members an email containing a link to a YouTube video for how to tie the Half-Baked Caddis fly. I checked it out and thought this looks like a fly I should have in my box. So, I sat down and tied up a bunch. You can find the video at the Ventures Fly Co YouTube page. The video also points to a PDF document containing the materials and some substitutions you can use. Ventures Fly Co also sells a tying kit if you don’t have all the needed materials.

Half Baked Caddis

From the fly tying kit page at Ventures Fly Co website: The Half-Baked Caddis is a sparse caddis emerger you can fish three ways—as a nymph, in the film, or on top—making it the fly to reach for when fish are eating pupae instead of adults. It is a simple fly to tie and uses materials and techniques that I have written about in the past. Here is the list of materials: Hook: size 16 or 18 dry fly hook Thread: brown, olive, brown-olive in 8/0 or 12/0 Tail: poly yarn, Antron, or Z-lon in brown or dark brown Ribbing: Mirror Tinsel or Pearl Tinsel Body: Superfine Dark Olive or Olive dubbing Wing: deer hair, natural I tied this in both size 16 and 18 hooks with brown and olive thread. I also used the mirror tinsel, but substituted pearl tinsel all of the size 18s and one of the size 16s. From watching the video, I learned a nice technique for starting the thread. The tier in the video started the thread at the 75% point on the hook, then wrapped toward the hook eye, and finally wrapped back over the previous wraps, locking the thread down. This technique is much easier than trying to immediately lock the thread down. Here are the steps to tie the Half-Baked Caddis: Tie in the thread and wrap back to the bend of the hook and then forward to the hook point. Cut some of the tail material, about an inch, and separate maybe 1/4th or 1/2 of the fibers for the tail (you don’t need a lot). Tie them in by wrapping back to the hook bend and then forward to the 75% point. Either trim the excess before wrapping forward or after reaching the 75% point. Now trim the tail to about 1/2 the length of the hook shank. Cut some tinsel and tie it in at the 75% point and wrap back to where the tail was tied in. Add a thin dubbing noodle to the thread and wrap it forward to the 75% point, building a taper toward the hook eye. Wrap the tinsel forward to the 75% and tie it off and trim the excess. Cut a small amount of deer hair (the video says about 10 hairs) and load it into your hair stacker and tap it to make the tips even. Measure the hair to cover just short of the end of the tail and tie it in. The hair butts will flair, as they should. Once secured, trim the butts down. Add a small amount of dubbing and taper it down toward the hook eye. Whip finish. A couple of points. One, you can add some head cement to your thread before whip finishing to make the head more durable. Two, when dealing with deer hair, there is some fluff that may be in the hair you cut off the hide. You’ll need to try and remove it, as it can interfere with the stacking, keeping the hairs from moving to align the tips.

I don’t know if this fly will produce this fall, but it will be ready for the caddis hatches in the spring of next year. Happy tying. Greg Walters