I promised a couple of forumites that I would post an SBS for my version of Roman Moser's famous balloon caddis.
This is a searching pattern par excellence on the rivers I fish. It pulls fish - big fish too - up from literally anywhere, regardless of whether there is a hatch and rise. It's a remarkable summer fly and one which I would feel naked without. Those of you who have tried it will know about its magic. For those who haven't, get some lashed up sharpish and find out what you've been missing.
My version isn't true to the original, but it's not all that far off. Scope for variations is endless - it's the basic footprint which does the damage.
Hook: Any lightweight dry. I use Varivas 2200 #16,14,12.
Thread: 14/0 sheer.
Rib: Pearsalls silk, amber.
Balloon: Yellow polycelon foam.
Wing: Coastal deer hair.
Abdomen: Any caddisy dubbing. I've used a blend of ginger SLF and light tan life cycle.
Thorax: Blend of dak tan and muskrat life cycle.
1. Run on your thread and catch in the silk rib. Bind down to tip of abdomen and bring the thread back up, parking it at a point roughly where the abdomen and thorax are going to meet. (I like Pearsalls silk for ribbing my dries - it's lightweight, translucent and tough as old boots):
2. Cut yourself a strip of foam appropriate to the size hook you're tying on. I'm using a #14 here and the foam is about 3mm wide. Cut a point in the tying in end with your scissors, to act as a tying in tag. Secure it on top of the hook thus:
3. Continue to bind the foam down. If you can make the turns fairly open, it doesn't compress the stuff too much which will help with floatability later on. Form a slight taper with the thread down the abdomen (no need to be excessively neat here), and park the thread at the butt ready for the dubbing:
4. Apply the body dubbing to the thread and wind a shaggy abdomen up the shank:
5. Follow up with the ribbing:
6. Time for the wing. I use pale-ish coastal deer for this - de-fuzzed and stacked in the normal manner. Offer the stacked bunch up to the hook with the right hand to assess wing length. This is a matter of personal preference, but I tend to aim for the points of the wing being just slightly beyond the hook bend. Now swap the bunch to your left hand (I'm assuming right handedness here), and cut off the butts to the desired length. Offer up to the hook and pinch and loop in with a couple of tight turns. Don't worry too much if the wing flares upwards a bit - we'll deal with that later....
7. Now is the time to further secure the wing and trim off the stray butt ends:
8. Thorax dubbing next: You can use the same shade as the abdomen, or a slightly darker mix as I have done here. This needs to be dubbed on backwards - ie from the hook eye, back toward the base of the deer hair wing:
9. Nearly there. Fold back the foam thorax cover - under only slight tension so as not to compromise the foam's inherent floatability too much - and secure with two firm turns of the thread. Do a three turn whip finish in situ and trim off the thread. You will notice on my photo that in whip finishing the fly, I have inadvertantly 'rolled' a couple of deer hairs round the wing - you can see them hanging off the underside of the fly on the opposite side. If this happens, don't worry, just snip them off at the base - this is a scruffy, suggestive fly which doesn't need to be tied super neatly (bloody good job where my tying is concerned)!
10. All that remains is to offer the scissors up to the back of the tied down foam and snip off the tag end. You will notice that in tying down the foam, the tag end has flattened down the deer hair nicely, dealing with that slight flaring that we had before - maybe a touch too much, but the final stage takes care of that.
11. As a finishing touch, use the very tips of the scissors to trim back the tag closer to the whip finish. As the excess foam is trimmed, you will find that the slightly over-flattened wing springs back a little bit into a more pleasing position. Add a drop of cement to the whippings and it's job done. Not perfect by any means, but the trout wont care I can assure you!
Hope that was of some use....and I hope the fly, if you choose to try it, proves as devastating as it has done for me over the years.
Finally, a couple of pics of the top and underside of the fly. Looking at the straggly, sedgy underside, you can see why the fish attack the fly so confidently. Happy fishing and happy new year to you all
ATB,
Matt
Balloon Caddis
SKB tackle supporter. I love Furled Leaders.
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