How To Tie A Green Caddis Larva

Learn how to tie a great Caddis Larva nymph, including a video tutorial and a full material list. Improve your fly-tying skills here.

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Today we're diving into the world of fly tying with a close look at the Green Caddis Larva Fly, a nymph that's a proven fish catcher. Crafted using simple yet effective materials like Dave Whitlock's SLF dubbing and a Core 1120 Nymph and Scud hook, this fly is ideal for beginners due to its straightforward assembly and versatility in matching local aquatic life. Whether you're fishing in olive, brown, or rust, the Green Caddis Larva is essential for your fly box, especially in sizes 14 to 16. Drop a comment to share your experiences or tips with this fly!

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Material List:

Hook: Core C1120 (size: 14)

Wire: Danville Spooled Lead Wire .015

Thread: Danville 6/0- Black

Rib: UNI Soft Wire (Small, Neon Olive)

Dubbing: Hareline HareTron in Olive and Brown

Adhesives: Zap-A-Gap and Loon Water Based Head Cement

Video Transcript

Hello, I'm Carl at Trident Fly Fishing. Today we're going to tie the Green Caddis Larva. This is a nice nymph. It's a proven fish catcher. You can tie it in olive, brown, or maybe rust - just match the colors of the bugs on your home waters. It's a great fly for beginners to tie and it uses very few materials.

Here's the fly in the vise. The hook we're going to use today is a Core C1120 nymph scud hook, size 14. You can tie this in 14s or 16s, I would recommend. We'll start with a little bit of lead wire to help get this thing down in the water column. This is .015 Danville's. We're going to take a little bit of Zap-A-Gap and put that on the back of the hook just to start. This will hold the lead in place and keep it from spinning around the hook. Take several wraps forward. That's already frozen in place - it's not going anywhere.

Our thread is Danville's Flymaster 6/0, color is black. We'll get this started right behind the lead, form our jam knot, and we're going to wrap that well into the bend of the hook. Come back up to where we're going to tie in our rib material. This is UNI Soft Wire, color is neon olive. Danville's also sells a color called chartreuse, and I can't tell the difference between the two. We'll tie this in right behind that lead and wrap back down to where our thread stopped, well into the bend of the hook.

For the abdomen of this fly, we're going to use some Dave Whitlock's SLF dubbing. This is a blend of synthetics and natural hair. It's got a little bit of shine to it and it's spiky. We're going to make a thin dubbing noodle here. You want to keep the noodle nice and thin - you don't want to bulk this body up at all. And now we're going to take that wire and palmer it up to form some segmentation on the abdomen. Tie that off and just helicopter that wire and it'll break off for us.

For the thorax of the fly, we're going to use the same dubbing. This is called Dark Stone - it's almost a black color, again with just a little bit of sparkle to it. It's not going to take much of this at all. I'm going to wrap back into the abdomen a little bit with this, and then back to the eye. Get out our whip finish tool, four or five turn whip finish. Cut our thread.

It's optional as to whether or not you put any head cement on this. Loon's water-based works just fine. We'll put a drop of that on - I don't think it's really necessary on this little fly. And take our bodkin tool out here and pick out some of this material to give the illusion of legs and gills. If it's a little too spiky, trim that up. And that's it, our fly is finished.

Please feel free to add comments at the bottom of the page, and don't forget to hit that subscribe button to view all the new content here at Trident Fly Fishing. Thanks for watching, and I hope to see you again next time.