Tied Down Caddis (TDC) SwittersB

Tied Down Caddis (TDC) SwittersB

I tied these with a yellow and a olive body. Originally, I only fished with an orange bodied TDC. I need to tie some of those orange bodies. This pattern doubles as a scud pattern too, for some. By the eye, I thought the hackle to be just fine, but in looking at the pic, the lens shows the hackle to be a bit overdressed and too long for my tastes. This is a lesson in fly tying, a pattern that you have never tied before or haven’t visited in a while, often requires a good half dozen efforts to fine tune the look and materials to maintain that look.

Size 14 nymph hook, 8/0 tan thread, deer hair tail and top pulled up over single strand of wool yarn (3 ply), tied in at back, which is wrapped up the shank and tied off. A brown hackle was tied in at same tie in point as single strand of yarn. Hackle was wrapped forward over body. The deer hair is then pulled over the body/hackle and tied down. The hard part (for me) is to then trim the deer hair close, then cover the deer hair to form a thread head, without too much build up. The body could be dubbed, but I would go with a dry fly type fine dubbing. Of course, the options abound.