Rylee’s X-Caddis – by Lucas Langton

featured, Fly Patterns, Step-by-Step Tutorials — By Kevin Hospodar on September 4, 2013 9:43 pm

Rylee’s X-caddis is usually my fall back pattern to fish during a caddis hatch, if they’re not taking anything else before I jump ship and put on an indicator I’ll give this pattern a try. I can remember one evening in the Driftless Area of Wisconsin, I had about 80 yards left of stream before I made it back to the truck and had only landed 2 fish all evening. There was a few tan caddis coming off and I had been fishing other caddis variations, I decided to tie Rylee’s X-Caddis on, to finish out the evening. I was glad I did, I managed to pick off nine more browns before I got to the truck. It turned a relatively slow evening into a great evening on the water.

The difference between this pattern and a traditional X-caddis pattern is the body material and the foam hidden in the wing. I like using the synthetics like the v-rib to make the body of most my flies, it gives them a different look and I think a cleaner finish. The foam helps the fly float and stabilize in the water, also by using the butt ends of the elk hair versus the tips helps the fly float.

Material
Hook: Gamakatsu R10-B
Body: Tan UTC 140, Clear V-rib
Thorax: Brown Superfine dubbing, 2mm foam
Tail: Olive/brown Antron
Wing: Elk Hair butts

Attach your thread.

Tie in your Antron tail, try to keep the thread body smooth.

Tie in your v-rib, I tie it in from the front of the body and tie it back to keep the body the same size. Then wrap it back to the front of the body and tie it off.

Now you’re ready for the foam I cut a strip about ¾ the hook gap.

Build a small thorax out of your brown dubbing. Just enough to hide your foam. I also go ahead a build a small thread head to give the hair something to cinch down tight against.

Clean and stack the elk hair, remember to stack the butt ends instead of the tips. Also clean it as well as you can the butts have all those small under hair and you want to try to minimize them in your wing.

At this point you can whip finish, it’s time to start cleaning up the fly. I trim the wings at an angle from the head, with them getting a little longer towards the back of the fly and cut the foam to about 3-4 cm. Glue the head and you’re done.

Tags: Caddis, Dry Fly, Lucas Langton