Balloon Caddis

We are seeing an all time low in our river water levels and with this comes some changes in the trouts behaviors which can make them an easier target for their predators.  Now grouping together in the deeper sections of the river the shoals of fish can be easily targeted and spotted. Some anglers would have the approach of be extra careful when fishing for these pods of fish and though I would agree with that most of the time. However lately I have been having more success in being a bit more aggressive with my presentation of my dry fly and my wading.

I would not be afraid to wade through the river and push the majority of fish into the head of the pool or run, by doing this you will also heighten there aggression and in turn they will be more likely to attack something put into the same space; for example your fly.

I use a aggressive dry fly leader, that I make up myself and with a large dry fly I just keep smashing it into the run, leaving it on the water only for a foot or so and recasting constantly; giving the fish a short window to make up their mind to attack or not. Its fast fishing and I like to keep the fly as close to me as possible so when I get the hook up I can lift the fish out of the water as quickly to my net with out putting to many of the other trout off that are in the pod.

Here is a good pattern that has worked for me using this approach.

Begin by placing a B100 hook into the vise and using olive thread tie in two strands of krystal flash as a tail. 

Tie in some flat pearl tinsel as the rib and dub on some natural hares ear, three quarters up the body. Rib the dubbing and brush out the dubbing well once tied off. 

Take a pinch of fine deer hair and tie in a wing, leaving enough space at the front of the hook for the head. 

Take some foam and tie it in at the front of the hook, I like to use pink but you can use your preferred  colour.

Add in your thorax dubbing. Here I use a mixture of dubbing including natural hare, white UV, purple UV and some gold, all mixed well. Once you have dubbed the thorax pull over the foam and tie off at he back of the thorax.

Brush out the thorax well to get the mix of colours coming out and this will give the fish a good target point on the fly. I do like the bushy look to this fly and it can help it stay afloat in turbulent water. 

I hope you enjoy reading this post and if you have any comments or questions just drop me a line below, also you can sign in and follow us. Thanks for reading and enjoy the fishing.