We were up north, just across the border, swinging flies on a wide river for rising trout, when I was struck again by the peculiarities of the waking fly. Nothing hews more sharply against the grain of conventional fly-fishing wisdom than the idea of a fly, swung downstream on a tight line, that creases the surface of the current as a means of stimulating a strike. That evening, I was fishing two flies, a soft-hackled caddis pupa and, above it, a wet caddis that kept riding up against the lid or ceiling of the river. Even in the low light, the abnormal V trailing the top fly stood out as if a contrail behind a jet in blue sky, clearly visible, despite the sad range of focus of my aging eyes.
All of my best fish that evening, a handful of them, came to the waking fly. A session later in the week, on the same water, offered much the same. We can only speculate why. One trout in particular erupted through the surface at the apex of the V and instantly broke off — without a discernible trace of weight passing through line or rod. (I know it ate the waking fly; that’s what was missing on inspection of the apparently undersized leader.) But after two decades since initiation into the juju of waking patterns and presentations, back when I first witnessed their remarkable efficacy in provoking grabs from summer steelhead, I wonder if the question why serves any real purpose, beyond the need to fabricate a narrative for the stranger than fiction or otherwise hard to believe.
How, it seems to me, might be the better question. Most fly anglers approach river and stream well versed in dry-fly doctrine and, to a lesser degree, with a rudimentary understanding of basic nymphing techniques, although for many anglers, their subsurface studies have been short-circuited by a reliance on various iterations of strike indicators. If an angler has woven the wet-fly swing into his or her game, it probably means he or she has explored the literature or been lucky enough to fish with an experienced hand, a parent or other relative or perhaps an older friend who doesn’t necessarily know about the latest and greatest flies and gimmickry, but who somehow manages to catch at least as many fish as anyone else on the water.
But who includes waking flies in their repertoire of tactics? I’m referring here to trouting, although the question pertains, as well, of course, to steelheading, to saltwater surface presentations, and to bass and other warmwater species.
Not that fishing a waking fly is difficult. It’s just that many anglers don’t include the tactic in their playbooks, especially in the running waters — the rivers and streams — that make up so many of our traditional trout-fishing opportunities.
This may change as more and more trout anglers take up two-handed rods and begin to explore with greater frequency the subtleties of downstream presentations. But don’t get me wrong: I’m the last person to argue the need for new equipment to expand your angling skills or artistry. The favorite rod and cared-for floating line remain the core components of nearly every solution you’ll ever need while trouting on river or stream, and as soon as you recognize and accept these basic tools for the job at hand, you can turn all of your attention to the aspects of presentation that matter most and that make you a better fly fisher, as well.
That includes in which direction to cast your line. I’m not trying to be funny. Inexperienced anglers are often confused by or unaware of the sharp difference between upstream and downstream presentations or how seasoned anglers might change the way they manipulate casts that begin with a natural drift in the upstream quadrant and then come under tension as fly and leader and line pass downstream. Schooled only in traditional dry-fly tactics, anglers see the fly begin to drag and know they should pick up and cast again. Practiced in a full range of presentation techniques, however, an angler becomes adept at utilizing drag or tension to offer up the fly in ways that might actually prove more lifelike, or at least more enticing, than the fly during a drag-free drift.
Which brings us to the matter of the waking fly. What, in real life, we may be trying to represent is anyone’s guess.
These days, as mentioned, I prefer to limit myself to the thought that I’m hoping to catch fish, and the waking fly is one way that sometimes works. And by works I mean it’s a technique that often yields the biggest fish of a session, a day, a trip. Again, I don’t know why, other than to note that nothing else we do with the fly behaves quite like a waker, and its mysterious appeal to fish feeds my own desire for surprise, wonder, and delight, ingredients that have always seemed essential to the point of fly fishing.
Here’s what I do know. First off, waking should not be confused with skating. If you can see your fly riding on top of the water, your fly is either overdressed or the water you’re fishing has too much current. You want your waking pattern to fish beneath the surface. It rises to the extreme top limit of the water column and leaves its wake by scraping or scoring or otherwise distorting the underside of the surface film. Obviously, it’s the tension created by current that makes the dragging fly press against the ceiling of river or stream and leave its telltale V-shaped wake. Still, one of the best things you can do when fishing a waker is slow down its movement or swing across the current, beginning with a straight-leader cast that’s followed by judicious mends, preventing the sort of crack-the-whip swing that plagues so many downstream presentations.
Long, straight casts aimed farther down than across the current work best. Even if you want to begin with a drag-free drift and then have the fly wake through the swing, a cast that begins with a straight leader nearly always spends more time fishing effectively than one that uses up much of its swing before settling into a smooth, even pace.
On the other hand, let your waking fly fish. Too much mending, like too much picking up and recasting, disturbs the water and, presumably, the fish. Nothing improves your chances more in trout fishing than stopping and doing nothing at all for a while. Wait until you see a fish rise, then swing your waker right over the trout’s nose.
Is there more to it? I’m not sure. Clearly, it’s reasonable to assume that if our waker looks something like other bugs on which the fish are feeding, we have more chance to provoke a strike or stimulate a grab than if we attempt to imitate, say, a lawn chair or plastic bath toy. But I’ve seen too many fish respond to waking flies that are simply attractive lures to take that logic too far. Fish, like most animals, can be curious; there’s probably some deep biological imperative that demands trout, like steelhead, set caution aside now and then and get up there and check it out. Of course, the crucial fact about fish is that they don’t have hands or paws or other appendages to do their investigative work. Fish explore their world with their mouths.
Lucky us.
The Cock Robin Caddis is the latest iteration of a long line of waking Muddlers I’ve fashioned over the years. Earlier versions of this style of fly were for targeting steelhead; this is the first one I’ve created with trout in mind. All of these Muddlers belong to a lineage that originates with Bill McMillan’s Steelhead Caddis, the fly that sparked interest in surface flies for summer steelhead at a time, forty years ago, when most anglers were convinced that the best way to hook these elusive fish was to deliver the fly, by whatever means, down to the level of the fish, rather than expect the fish to rise to the surface and grab.
McMillan’s Steelhead Caddis was originally developed with some idea of imitating the big October Caddis so common in fall on West Coast rivers. He soon concluded, however, that in steelheading, at least, “method outranks precise pattern in importance.” My own waking Muddlers have nearly all evolved to the point that they make no pretense of imitating anything found in nature. They’re simply mechanical devices designed to wake, with the sparsest of dressings and just enough color and flash so that I believe in them.
The Cock Robin Caddis, on the other hand, would seem to imitate, or at least suggest, the genuine October or Fall Caddis (Limnephilidae). In truth, however, it owes its design and name to the original Cock Robin, a traditional Irish lough pattern and a Scottish variant of the same name. Like so many other patterns I fish, some of them with a great deal of success, the Cock Robin simply looks right to me. It took little in the way of imagination to conform it to the style of my other waking Muddlers and picture it, in the fall, moving some of those same big trout that grabbed so greedily the smaller wet caddis waking on a summer’s eve. Whether I end up swinging the Cock Robin Caddis through a steelhead lie, as well, remains to be seen. If the trout are big enough, and they rise to a fly on a waking swing, you might find yourself capable of ignoring, for a while, fish that swim from the sea.
Materials
Hook: Partridge Single Wilson or similar, size 8 to 10
Thread: Antique gold Pearsall’s Gossamer Silk
Tag: Small oval gold tinsel
Rib: Small oval gold tinsel
Body: Golden olive seal fur, rear half; burnt orange seal fur, forward half
Underwing: Bronze mallard
Wing: Natural fox squirrel tail
Head/collar: Sparse deer hair, spun and trimmed, with a few strands left to extend back over body
Tying Instructions
Step 1: Secure the hook in the vise. Start the thread at the midpoint of the hook shank. Tie in the end of a length of oval tinsel. Align the tinsel with the top of the hook shank and cover it with thread wraps back to a point directly above the barb. Now advance the thread to a spot directly over the point of the hook.
Step 2: Starting above the barb of the hook, create the tag of the fly by advancing the tinsel five or six turns. Tie off the tinsel, then fold it aft and cover the folded portion with several more thread wraps.
Step 3: To begin the body of the fly, wax your thread and create a small dubbing noodle with golden olive seal fur. Wind the noodle forward from the tinsel tag to the midpoint of the hook shank. For the forward half of the body, create another dubbing noodle with red seal fur and wind it forward, stopping well short of the hook eye. Now wind the tinsel forward, ribbing the fly with four to six evenly spaced turns. Secure the tinsel and clip the excess.
Step 4: For the fly’s underwing, align the tips of a small tuft of bronze mallard wing fibers and then roll them between thumb and forefinger. This disorganizes the inherent bend in the fibers so that they end up looking more coherent once tied into place. Tie in the fibers by the butts with the tips extending just short f the aft end of the body. Don’t clip the excess yet.
Step 5: The squirrel tail overwing should extend just beyond the underwing. Because the entire wing, underwing and overwing, is fashioned in two parts, it’s easy to end up with an overdressed wing. Remember: waking flies work best when sparse. Clip a small tuft of squirrel tail, comb out any underfur, and align the tips in a hair stacker. Tie in the squirrel tail hairs directly on top of the bronze mallard fibers. Now clip the excess butt material of both wing parts.
Step 6: The essential component of all waking Muddlers is the last step — creating a sparse spun deer hair head with a collar of stray hairs extending just beyond the butt of the fly. Practice, practice. Your aim, again, is a lightly dressed fly. Some deer hair works better than other deer hair. There’s also personal preference. Clip a fairly substantial tuft from your patch, comb out the underfur, then align the tips in a hair stacker. Lay the tuft along the top of the fly, check the length against the bend of the hook, then take one or two very soft turns of thread just forward of the tie-off point of the wings. The trick now is to continue the next thread wraps slowly while at the same time creating thread tension so that the hairs spin around the hook shank and begin to splay. Continue to wind the thread through the splayed butts of deer hair until you finally have all of the butts standing erect behind the final forward wraps of thread. At this point, you can whip finish and saturate the exposed thread wraps with lacquer or head cement. Then grab your scissors, trim the head of the fly, and reduce the aft-pointing hairs to a number far fewer than you may think you need. A good buddy of mine calls my wakers “Six-Haired Muddlers.” That’s an exaggeration — but not by much.
