Case Caddis & other questions

[jovalle]

So a few questions, the primary revolving around case caddis patterns. Unfortunately I lost my C&F nymph box this weekend, hundreds of hours of nymph tying down the river. Fortunately, Harold decided to cut me a break on replacements, which was a nice surprise, though now I hae a long slog on the bench ahead:

1. I saw on your youtube video on the case caddis pattern that you overdub the green head with black, so that there is only a small band of green at the head. Most other patterns (and ones I have tied in the past), don't cover the green and leave it as a nub. Is there a reason for your overdubbing? Does it work better? Any other general thoughts on case caddis? Do you ever do the trimmed rubber bodies that one see on the internet and in books? Ever glued sand to the dubbing?

2. Just out of interest, two weekends back i was on the river and got angler surveyed for the first time. First shocking news, according to the DEP guy, was that a three fish afternoon over four hours was "very good" for the Housy that day (I thought it was miserable), but more importantly, he was attributing the bad fishing to increased flows due to the dam releasing more water. He kept referring to how good the water has become due to the varied release schedule at the dam. Now I was under the impression that natural flows meant there was no active policy of releases, so why would the DEP guy think otherwise? Seemed kinda strange to attribute the high water to increased releases as opposed to something like rain...

Last bit of weirdness to share with the group, prior to loosing my flybox, I was attacked by a squirrel midstream...literally about thirty feet from the shore, at the bottom end of gravel hole I was switching out my streamer and I felt something on my leg to look down and see a long grey furry thing trying to climb up my waders. At first I thought it was an old fish corpse that washed up against me, only to see it jump off and swim away...weird.

[AaronJasper]

I jsut use plain dubbing. I use either the brown or peacock ice dubbing. I keep it simple. I think too many people have too many
Fly patterns to choose from. I make one large one for the wood cased caddis and a smaller one for the Grannoms.

About the catch rates. The DEP admitted that catch rates were about .2 trout per hour. The average for C and R streams should be around 1 fish per hour for the average angler. As you can see we are well below that number.

[FK]

I had a similar event a few years ago,,,, splashes in the water and a small frog is swimming right towards me, actually leaping out of the water with every flex of its legs,,,,, the frog bangs its head into my leg and cannot climb so it swims arround in back of me,,,, I looked down and a huge smallmouth was chasing the frog,,, he sees me and makes a splashy turn about 2ft from my waders.


Regards,
FK

[alanb_ct]

jovalle:

Perhaps the DEP staffer misunderstood your question about flows. The river has been running free with no dam control for three years. I bet you he was contrasting the current flows to the past pond-and-release modes.

As far as the cased caddis and the peeking green head, I will tell you what Aaron told me..."less is more." The black near the head sort of represents the legs. Another good version of the fly replaces the black dubbing with a black bead.

I think the reason I tie a variety of flies is just to break up the monotony. I tie 6 or 12 at a time, and after that, I find it refreshing to move to another style.

[Nymphmeister]

1. I know Aaron has said to me that he thinks most people overdo the green "peeking" portion of the cased caddis, and I believe the black in front is to primarily imitate the head, and in the case of dubbing as Alain stated it could imitate legs (if some fibers trail out).

Variations I've done have included LaFontaine style ones with the case made of soft hackle fibers trimmed to shape, usually from a mottled hen saddle, with small crystal chenille in dark olive/peacock for the "peeking" portion & a bead in front of that (I recommend black)- that pattern works quite well indeed. Ice Dub also works well for the peeking part, as well as for the case as Aaron likes to do. If you use it for the case, rib it with wire and trim and stay fibers closely or it will fray out like a fright wig.

I also like to use Doug Swisher's (http://www.dougswisher.com/fly_tying_materials.htm) rubberized dubbing blend (brown in the regular Peacock Plus Dubbing) to make the case on some of my bigger ones, it looks just like the real ones & is easy to tie and has some built in motion. And if you want to "Euro Nymph" with weighted flies & no split shot, you can easily tie these in #6-8 on 2-3x long hooks which will accommodate as much lead as you desire, and you can cap it off with a black tungsten bead too. The naturals can be even bigger than that, believe it or not, and I find the sizes I just mentioned to be common in rivers like the Farmington and others. Remember that cased caddis live in slower flows, although they can get washed loose into faster water, esp. after an increase in flows.

2. As Alain stated, the Housy has been Natural Flow for a while now, I believe we are working on well over 4 years now, it might even be 5+. Whatever water comes into the dam is released at an equal rate. I would guess the creel survey guy was referring to water being released at a higher volume due to the rains we had recently. There are no longer any scheduled releases or unnatural fluctuations, only what Nature provides. Back in the day, during shutdown flows which were well under 200cfs, the trout would be stacked up and highly concentrated in the pools & deeper runs, which made for higher catch rates and more dry fly fishing (the higher the cfs the less efficient it is for the trout to feed on the surface, and trout are all about efficiency).

Catch rates are an interesting subject. Fisheries biologists consider .7 fish per hour & up to be good/acceptable catch rates- 1 or more per hour would actually be excellent. The Farmington, which is stocked at a per acre density about 5+ times higher than the Housy, has an average catch rate in the TMA of just a hair over 1 fish per hour. Below .7, fishermen tend to be dissatisfied & will often go elsewhere in search of greener pastures. The Housy was somewhere around the .7 number the last time the CT state DEP studied it, this year (at least in the Spring) it was .2 or so I think- that's 5 hours to catch one trout! It seemed like the catch rates were much better in the August thru October time slot, with a lot coming on dry flies too, esp. in Aug/Sept. When the Spring fishing finally got fast & furious in late May, we got nailed with flood water in early June that didn't recede until July, when it was too warm to trout fish. Remember too, that catch rates are based on the average angler. Those of you who are good fishermen or who frequent a particular river on a regular basis will likely have a catch rate well above "average".

Interesting stories about squirrels & frogs, cannot say I've ever been attacked by either. I did, however, have a baby duck that got separated from his Mommy take a liking to me and wouldn't leave my side.

[jovalle]

Thanks for the insight on the caddis. I had tended to use the ice dub in the past, but always left the green bit at the end uncovered with some left over downy bits from hackle tied in for legs. I'll try the black beads and extra lead - I like to use these instead of lead in the spring, even when indicator nymphing. For whatever reason I tend to get less snags in the slower water with heavily weighted flies as opposed to shot.

As for the flows, those were my thoughts, but the DEP guy was fairly insistent that they were regulating flows (and attributed the good fishing to regulated flows!). I made some mention of natural flows and we both kinda stared at each other blankly. The reason I bring it up, and maybe it can all be chalked up to misunderstanding, but I was a little freaked out that one of the guys who is responsible for stewardship of our river had no clue as to what water regime was practiced, and what was responsible for the relatively good fishing we had in August. The other interesting questions were about a) what species I was targeting (I laughed at this one and said fish!), b) what variety I preferred catching (browns, rainbows, brookies) and c) what size fish I preferred to catch.

Now while I tend not to view fishing as going down to the buffet and selecting my entree, I did appreciate the extent to which the questioning highlighted the relative lack of success of fisherman (I was the first surveyed to catch a fish!) on a perfect Sunday for fishing as well as the potential to vary the stocking program from simply supplying 10k fingerlings twice a year. Perhaps it helped that I was below the TMA and explained that the rainbow infusion and greater population of holdover brown was explicitly why I chose to be there...

[alanb_ct]

jovalle:

The DEP person that interviewed you was just a staffer, not really the person influencing policy decisions.

The questions they ask are fairly benign, as they try to get quantifiable data to enter in a database. It's hard to quantify or sort the "fishing experience" without writing down some numbers, lengths and species. Good management practices need objective data, but obtaining that data just happens to be the hardest part. This is why anecdotal evidence can hurt or help a fishery, depending on interpretation; just look at what happened this summer on the Farmington.

There is no doubt, however, that the questionnaire and the data collection methods need a lot of improvement!

[AaronJasper]

In the DEP's defense, the questionaire that they are using collects a lot more data than the ones used by NYDEC, ARFGW or Colorado F and G. I really think that they are trying to collect good data in order to do what's best for the fishery. It's just a shame that it took them so long.

Also, the people collecting the data are doing just that. They do not need be familiar with the water flow and fishery. As a matter of fact it might be to the public's best interest that they are not familiar with it at all. I know that if I wanted to slant nunbers, i would survery people in Housatonic Meadows State Park because the catch rates will be higher there due to the heavy concentration of fish. I give these guys credit, I have seen them ALL over the TMA and below it for that matter.