Thursday, August 19, 2010

A Little More on the Missing Link Caddis

Just returned from a few days in Boston - business and pleasure - a bunch of meetings and Karen and I celebrated our anniversery with my stepdaughter Julia, and also hung out with my daughter Megan and her friend Jon till the wee hours of the night.  Great time in a great city with my favorite people.

Anyway, I've been thinking I should give you all a heads up about this wonderful fly called the Missing Link Caddis.  Mike Mercer is the originator of this concoction and it's a winner.  I've used here this past season and, of course, in Montana.  It's easy to tie and covers a wide range of caddis behaviors in terms of the silhouette.  The spent zelon wings and the up-right elk hair wings combined with the thin sliver of a body provides an impression of several stages of caddis - at least that's what I think, you may have another view, either way keep a few in your  box and fish them.


So how do I tie this fly?  Sparsely, and a little different than the originator.  I like to keep it as simple as possible...................you can decide for yourself as I'll provide the skinny here:

Hook: TMC 102Y #15-17
Thread: Olive
Abdomen: Olive thread
Rib: One strand krystal flash - coat with head cement to secure
Thorax: Tan dubbing
Spent wing: Rusty dun zelon divided by the thorax
Upright wing: Elk hair
Hackle: Medium dun.  Mercer wraps the hackle parachute style around the wing and the butts of the wing, standing the butts up over the hook eye.  It also pulls the wing more upright.  I wrap the hackle collar style where I tie in the elk hair and trim it on the bottom, and it works just fine without the craziness of trying to wrap it parachute style and tie it off.  I can do it, but why, when you can wrap it otherwise and save time and get on to the next one?

Have a ball, take your time, there's always tomorrow.               

1 comment:

Joe glidden said...

I'm attempting to find a source for uni-flexx 1680 d floss. I'd like to tie the chimarra of yours, but can't locate







Sorry ...hit the wrong key!! If you would be so kind as to give me a source for the 1680 uni-flexx floss you use on the chimarra;
I went nuts trying!
Thanks ever so much.

Joe glidden
[email protected]
You have a great site....Thanks