CDC and Elk Hair Caddis

Tied by J. Stockard Pro Tyer Luke Stacy
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This version of the CDC and Elk Hair Caddis is tied by J. Stockard Pro Tyer Luke Stacy, who subtly updates a time-tested pattern. The classic elk hair caddis is already a staple in most trout boxes, but adding CDC to the thorax gives the fly an extra dose of realism—creating a soft, buggy silhouette that trout find hard to ignore.

The combination of the upright elk hair wing and the lively CDC creates both a convincing profile and natural movement on the surface. It’s the kind of fly that fishes well during active caddis hatches, but it can also stand in as a general attractor when nothing obvious is coming off.

Luke notes that the pattern is fairly easy to tie once you’ve done a few, and it’s absolutely worth the repetition. It’s one of those flies that consistently produces, even when more complicated patterns don’t.

You can fish it on a nine-foot, 6x leader, with a soft hackle or lightly weighted nymph tied off the bend as a dropper. Or, just fish it solo on a dead drift and watch for the take.

Materials

Hook: Standard dry fly hook, size 14–18
Thread: 8/0 or 70 denier, color to match body
Body: Fine dry fly dubbing (tan, olive, or gray)
Thorax: CDC fibers (natural or dyed)
Wing: Elk hair, natural or bleached
Hackle: Optional – palmered dry fly hackle (color to match body)
Finish: Sparse and buoyant, treated with floatant before fishing

Step 1

Start your thread roughly 1/3rd of the hook shank length behind the eye of the hook. Begin wrapping your thread to the back of the hook bend and trim your tag end off with scissors. Stop your thread where the barb of the hook is (or would be if you tie on barbless hooks).

Step 2

Create a tapered abdomen using dubbing. The dubbing noodle should be thinner towards the back of the hook and thicker as the dubbing progresses up the hook shank. Your dubbing should stop at the 1/3rd mark where you initially began tying in your thread in step 1.

Step 3

Trim a healthy portion of elk hair from your patch and comb out all the under fur and stack the hair in your hair stacker. Keeping the hairs aligned, remove the hair fibers from the hair stacker and tie the hair in at the 1/3rd mark previously mentioned. Typically, when he ties in elk/deer hair, Luke first places a loose wrap of thread over the hair and then position the hair how he wants it and then tightens down on the hair with the thread and places a few more wraps to 'save' his work. He then grabs the butt ends of the hair in roughly 1/3rd increments and places a thread wrap in between the clumps until he reaches the front of the hair. At this time the hair should be well secured. Gently pull the butt ends of the hair towards the eye of the hook and trim the ends at a forty-five-degree angle. Once the butt ends of the hair is trimmed, spin your bobbin counterclockwise to flatten out your thread so that you can utilize the width of the thread to compress the butt ends down and create a downward ramp towards the eye. Re-position your thread to the original 1/3rd mark. This should be at the base of where the elk hair was tied in at.

Step 4

Create and secure a dubbing loop and take wraps of thread down to directly behind the hook eye so you can meet your dubbing loop. Place a portion of trimmed CDC from 3 feathers in the loop and spin the loop so that the CDC fibers become secured with the thread rope you are creating. Now wrap the dubbing loop with the CDC spun down to the hook eye. Be sure to gently work the CDC fibers back towards the bend of the hook as you wrap. This will ensure a full thorax area that will float better. Once your dubbing loop is directly behind the eye of the hook, secure the loop and trim away the excess portion of the loop. Now all there is left to do is to whip finish a clean head and trim the bottom of the CDC off. Trimming the CDC will allow the fly to ride lower in the film and works great for fish that are being selective on emergers.