October caddis don't wait for October

You see them all summer long - those little sand-and-gravel cases on the downstream side of rocks in the shallows of the stream. They might have a little black head and legs sticking out and crawl slowly across the bottom. Spook them, cast a shadow over them, and they pull their heads in, lie still and seem to disappear.

They crawl out of their cases and build new ones several times through the summer. Each case is glued together from the sand in the river bottom using a special UV-reflective protein "glue" that the little bug exudes for the purpose. When the old case doesn't fit, off it comes and the cream-colored and grub-like little caddis nymph, sometimes called a rockworm, is exposed for a few days while he or she builds another.

They're usually in their final case, about an inch-and-a-quarter long and a quarter-inch or more wide, by early or mid-September. They'll seal off the case on a rock and pupate within it - grow wings, as a butterfly would within a cocoon.

After about three chilly nights some of them will cut their way out of their little rock fortresses and drift toward the water's surface. That drift to the top might be as short as a few inches or might take a quarter mile in the stream's main current.

At this point the cream-colored pupa has grown its adult wings and has an orange body. The hatching phase, where they drift to the top, usually occurs during the pleasant part of the day. Once it starts in mid-September this hatching cycle might last for several weeks.

When they break free, these #8 orange caddis pupae drift helplessly as they move from the bottom of the river to the top. Each one is a conspicuous and easy meal for a trout. Once this drift starts to occur, just a few at first and then more and more each day, the trout often seem to ignore everything else and spend their middays feeding on these big orange caddis nymphs.

When the drifting bugs are within about 18 inches or so from the surface, they swim as fast as their wiggling legs and wings can move their fat little bodies in an all-out effort to escape and fly away free.

Once on the surface, they buzz the water off their wings and take flight. If a batch of them manage to drift into the same place at the same time the trout congregate there with them and eat as many as they can. Then they fly like big moths toward the bushes, mate and the egg-laden females return to the river in the evenings to flutter delicately on the surface to deposit their eggs.

Don't expect to see hordes of October caddis coming to the surface at once. You might see a few in the slow reaches of a long run, in quiet pockets, or in gentle eddies below an inside curl - wherever the current tends to concentrate them toward the end of their drift.

Find that kind of a spot and fish it mid-afternoons. If you see surface action, fish a purpose-built skittering giant orange caddis pattern.

That said, the best action is underwater. Over the years of my guiding career, many of the best big-numbers, big-fish days came at this time of year, on big orange caddis nymphs.

I fished a heavily weighted #6 medium-shank or #8 caddis pupa, with a dubbed, multicolor body - the same idea that makes the Brindle 'Chute so successful as a dry fly. I'd have my float-fishing clients drift this fly below an indicator.

Or better, we'd stop and wade fish without an indicator, retrieving in a series of slow 8" pulls with two-second pauses in between.

My preferred method is to fish this nymph. I'll cast quartering down and above a good holding area, and feed line as I let the fly sink. I'll start the steady pull-and-pause retrieve as the fly approaches the bucket where I think there'll be fish. When I'm fishing closer to the surface, the pull and pause retrieve gets more active. I'll comb the water, working downstream, with successive casts.

The taut line will telegraph a strike more readily than an indicator. Set up by tightening the line - nothing more.

Give it a try - it isn't that hard. You'll find yourself detecting more hits and more hookups than you did with an indicator.