How to Tie the Front End Loader Caddis Fly Pattern

Learn how to tie the Front End Loader Caddis pattern, including step-by-step instructions, a video tutorial, pictures, and much more. Improve your fly-tying skills here.

This fly was designed by Umpqua signature tyer Devin Olsen. He was looking for a fly that floated low in the water but held up a nymph well. I'd say he got it right.

Material List

• Hook: Kona BC4 size 14
• Thread: Uni-Thread 8/0 in Camel
• Veevus: GSP 50 in Black
• Tag: McFlylon Polypro in Pink
• Rib: Flashabou Pearl
• Wing: Hareline Natural Deer Hair
• Sighter: McFlylon Polypro in Pink
• Post: Hareline Crazy Legs Golden Yellow
• Hackle: Whiting Grizzly Saddle Hackle

Video Transcript

Hello, I'm Carl at Trident Fly Fishing. Today we're going to tie the Front End Loader. This fly was designed by Umpqua's signature tyer Devin Olsen. He was looking for a fly that floated low in the water but held up a nymph well. It uses stacked hackle and I'd say he got it right. Here's the fly in the vise.

The hook we're going to use today is a Kona BC4 in size 14. That's their curved nymph hook. It's a barbless hook with a wicked point on it. The thread we're going to start with today is a Uni-Thread in 8/0. The color is camel. We'll get our thread started about two eye lengths behind the hook eye, grab a thread base, wrapping well into the bend, then back up to our tie-in point.

We're going to tie in a piece of McFlylon Polypro in the color pink. This is just a hot spot on this fly. Tie this end on top, wrap back into the bend, and we'll cut this off short, like so. Now we've got a piece of pearl-colored Flashabou. This is going to be a rib for the fly, and we'll tie this end down to the base of that hot spot.

Now an unusual trick for this fly to add a little robustness to it is to form a dubbing loop - which we're not going to fill with dubbing, but we are going to spin it up to make the thread stronger, and then we're going to wrap this up the body to help protect that Flashabou that we just tied in. Add some super-fine dubbing, a light brown for the body, form a thin noodle, and wrap up to our tie-in point. Now the Flashabou, we're going to counter-wrap that and tie it off. To protect that, we're going to take this dubbing loop and our fancy Stonfo tool here, spin that up into a rope, and then wrap that up the body. When we reach our tie-in point, we'll tie that off and cut our thread.

Our wing is next. That's just some simple deer hair. It's a very small wing, so maybe a third of a pencil's worth. Cut some off from the hide, get rid of all the short fuzzy stuff, and we'll get it in a stacker. Now the butt ends of this are going to be cut off, so off-camera here I'm going to get rid of some of that excess material. We want this to be about a hook length, like so. Measure that out. We want this to stay right up on top, so we're going to take just a few thread wraps, pulling it tight. It's 8/0 thread, so you can't pull too tight or it'll all come apart on you. We're going to trim away all of this material, being careful not to cut our thread. Wrap back through that, back a little ways to about where our hook point is, lay that down a little more, and give us some room to tie in our next material.

That next material is going to be a sighter for this fly. We're going to get some more of this McFlylon Polypro in the color pink, about half a hank's worth, and tie this in right in front of our wing. Cut off our excess. You can cut this any length you want really - I like it just a tad shorter than the wing itself.

Next we're going to tie in the post for our hackle. That's going to be a piece of Flex Floss in brown, made by Spirit River. I have used monofilament, which is really slippery - this is rubbery, and the thread really seems to grab it and hold it in place. We're going to form a loop that's about two inches to give us something to hang on to.

The hackle is just from a grizzly saddle. This is one size larger than the hook, so this is a size 12. We'll prepare it by cutting off some barbules on either side of the stem and tie that in right in front. Now a little bit more dubbing just to cover all of that up - it's not going to take much.

When it comes time to wrap the hackle, that pink sighter always seems to get in the way, so what I do is take a piece of painter's tape - it's not very sticky, so it's easy to remove. Now I don't have to worry about catching any of that Polypro. We're going to wrap this hackle up and we want it to end at the hook eye. You can just pull your material forward like so to see where you're at. Now we're going to wrap back down, form a nice bushy hackle, reach the bottom, and tie it off. You can just let go of the hackle - you can see it's not going to go anywhere - and you can actually use it to steer as you wrap. Once we've got that tied off, we're going to jump forward to the eye, cut off our excess hackle, bring that forward to the eye, and tie it off.

Before I do that, I'm going to add just a drop of Zap-A-Gap to the base of that tie-in. It probably isn't necessary, because as you fold it over it's going to hold the hackle in place - I guess I just do that out of habit. Now we're going to stroke back the hackle and capture that at the eye with a loose turn. Between the thread and that Flex Floss, we cut off the excess Flex Floss, form a small head, remove that tape that was getting in the way, get out our trusty whip finish tool, do a four or five turn whip finish, seat the knot, cut our thread, and add a little head cement - this is Loon's water-based. Clear it out of the eye and 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.