It’s 98 degrees today, an example of the sweltering heat that curses the Sacramento Valley over the summer months. But with the oppressive heat comes the great late evening caddis hatches on many streams, such as the Yuba River.
I first fished its cool tailwater currents in the late 1980s where it flows out of Englebright Reservoir. Back then, I thought nothing of racing in my pickup, tired after work, but flashlight in my vest, to fish the last hour of the amazing caddis hatch. I was in my late twenties, exploring the Yuba above Highway 20. While scanning for rattlesnakes, I would rig my 5-weight with one of my go-to dry fly patterns, the Spent Partridge. I also carried a small box that held my favorite wet fly, the Soft Hackle Peacock.
The Spent Partridge and Soft Hackle Peacock are flies that should be in everyone’s fly boxes. For the Spent Partridge, begin with a dry-fly hook, size 12 to 16. Mount your thread a third of the way behind the eye. Thread color and body color should match the color of the caddis natural. Sparsely dub the thread with your favorite dubbing, and beginning a third of the way down the shank, wrap the dubbing toward the rear to just before the bend, then wrap it back forward to the thread tie-in area. For the wing, choose two partridge feathers and remove the lower, fuzzy part. Tie them in at the one-third point, just in front of the dubbed body, one on the right side and one on the left, creating two rearward-pointing wings. They should partly tent over the dubbed body and extend a little farther back than the bend of the hook. Finish by tying a grizzly hackle and a brown hackle in front of the wing, wrap them to the eye, tie them off, and trim away any unused hackle. Whip finish.
For the Soft Hackle Peacock, on a short-shank hook, size 10 to 14, mount black thread and then a length of silver wire a little behind the eye. With the thread, bind the wire along the shank back to the rear, stopping short of the bend. Leave the wire hanging off the back. Return the thread to the front and tie in two lengths of peacock herl a little behind the eye. Wrap them back to above the bend and then back forward to a little behind the eye. Now counterwrap the wire forward through the herl, strengthening the fragile peacock stems, and tie it off behind the eye. Finally, attach a partridge hackle behind the eye and make two wraps, tie it off, and trim away the excess feather. Make a little thread head, and you’re done. The caddis hatch those years ago was epic and predictable. Every evening about eight, as the sun disappeared behind the hills, the first splashy rises of rainbows intercepting emerging caddisflies sent me into ecstasy as my Spent Partridge floated, drag free, into open, hungry mouths. As the light grew dimmer and dimmer and the fish kept rising, I would finish off the evening by tying on the Soft Hackle Peacock and swinging it until it was too dark to see.
One evening, I could not get them to eat either my dry fly or my wet. And the next evening, I managed only a few on my dry. Then I tried the wet. Nothing. But I remembered reading about a technique in a fly-fishing book I once checked out of the local library — the Leisenring Lift — and it saved the evening. About two feet above my Soft Hackle Peacock, I pinched on a split shot. I cast my fly about 15 feet above a trout that was rising consistently and allowed the wet to sink on a dead drift. When it approached the fish’s position, I sharply raised my rod, causing the fly suddenly to lift up toward the surface, and the trout violently grabbed it. Fish on. I still use that technique today, and you should, too.
—Andy Guibord
