Adirondack Caddis:

This fly is really nothing more than an Elk Hair Caddis with an Adirondack twist. The first time I saw a fly like this was in my fly shop. A gentleman who taught me a lot about fly fishing had a fly very similar to this. He called it the “West Canada Caddis.” I actually have found added success by taking this fly a little further with its colors. Fran Betters, a famous Adirondack fly tyer, used to tie all his flies with hot orange. It is important that this is not fluorescent orange, or hot pink, it is hot orange.

A few old timers would bring the orange to the shop when they used to teach fly tying classes there. I remember that at times we sold more hot orange thread than we did simple black. It was a sign that we found something that really did work. The late Fran Betters knew what he was doing when he tied his Usual’s and Ausable Wulff’s with this color. I also found that Hendrickson Pink is a very versatile color. It is for that reason that this fly is tied with a Hendrickson Pink body.

The fact that this color only comes from the urine stained fur of a vixen fox, also makes it somewhat hard to come by. For the record that material came from the Catskill fly tyers not the Adirondack tyers. It doesn’t really make sense because this pink color’s common on Mayfly patterns, not caddis. However, after a lot of time in the field I found that Stoneflies and Caddis also have a similar underbody color. I presume, hence its effectiveness.