Caddis Life Cycle Pack
Spring is fast approaching and the trout season will be firing up and the question is have you got the right Caddis patterns.
Lets talk Caddis. For a start there are a lot of them hanging round our rivers. This alone makes them interesting to both us and trout, however, when do trout get to eat them? They eat every part of the life cycle bar the egg as it is too small for the fish to see even though trout have outstanding underwater sight.
Our pack has no egg pattern. The bottom row of patterns in the photo give the early stages of caddis life. Any plain looking nymph could be a Stick Caddis case with a living creature in it. Drab coloured nymphs would do quite well, weighted with a bead even better. At this stage of the cycle a Stick Caddis clings to the rocks and find their food sources on the bottom of the river. After growing for several months, and in some species some years, the creature incases itself and pupates in preparation for the next stage of the cycle. Achieving this it chews its way out of the case. So the journey towards the surface begins. The Iron Maiden fly is swept along by the river current and then begins to ascend to the surface.
The next row of flies represent the near surface activity just before the emerging stage. Bubble Back Caddis green bodied, Bubble Back Caddis brown bodied and Olive Caddis CDC. This stage of the cycle is perilous for the soft bodied creature as it has to break the surface. It spends considerable time partially sinking and rising to try and break through. At this point it is heavily pursued by trout.
The next part of the cycle is the adult airborne insect. The patterns for this event are Yellow Sallys, Hot Creek Caddis and Snowflake Caddis in the third row. There are other patterns to cover this stage, for example Stimulators which are not in this pack.
The danger for this insect does not diminish now it has become airborne. It spends many days hiding along the river banks and over hanging structures. Preditors are many including spiders, birds and other insects. The real danger occurs every day in the late afternoon and evening when the mating clouds form over the water often in the soft air behind low hanging tree branches. The cloud mostly comprises male caddis with females occasionally coming out from hiding in the nearby foliage to join the cloud and mate. She drops to the water and deposits her eggs which then sink to the bottom. In some other species of caddis the female swims to the bottom of the river to deposit her eggs.
We have tried to keep this pack in a simple form as there are thousands of caddis species in Australian waterways and with many variations on the life cycle.
Trout find them delicious in all these stages.
If you happen to see these insects in the brighter part of the day in small numbers bouncing on the water they are just like you and me having a drink. Cheers.
This Pack Contains 34 Quality Hand Tied Flies.
Quantity
• Iron Maiden Green DTB #14 2
• Iron maiden Green DTB #16 2
• Hare & Copper Flashback GTB #14 2
• Hare & Copper Flashback GTB #16 2
• Haysies Stick Caddis #14 2
• Olive Caddis CDC #16 2
• Olive Caddis CDC #18 2
• Bubble Back Caddis Green #16 2
• Bubble Back Caddis Green #18 2
• Bubble Back Caddis Brown #16 2
• Bubble Back Caddis Brown #18 2
• Yellow Sally #18 2
• Yellow Sally #20 2
• Hot Creek Caddis #18 2
• Hot Creek Caddis #20 2
• Elk Hair Caddis White #16 2
• Leggy Eggy Stimulator #10 2