The October Caddis is a case making caddis, forming a shell around its larva with small stones from the stream.

The Rocker Roller is formed by spinning multiple colors of rubber in a dubbing loop, then trimming the rubber to shape. There are simpler and more complex methods to create a cased caddis pattern, but this looks just right.

Rocker Roller October Caddis Cased Larva

This takes a classic humpy pattern, adds a zelon egg sac/shuck like the X-Caddis, and a down wing with zelon underwing.

OC Humpy

OC Humpy

• Hook: TMC 100, size 10 or 8
• Tail/Shuck/Eggsac: Caddis Gold Zelon (don’t trim the “front end”)
• Body: Orange Thread
• Body: Deer hair, tied humpy style
• Underwing: Caddis Gold Zelon (the front end)
• Wing: Deer or Elk hair tied down wing (Trude) style
• Hackle: Brown, trimmed flush with hook gap

I’ve been very busy lately with work and home projects, so haven’t had time to concentrate on this blog. As such, I have several topics back-logged up. This will be a good excuse to clear out my backlog of blog posts.

Since its November, and nothing says November like the October Caddis (?)  The next half dozen posts or so will feature the October Caddis patterns that I’ve been tying and collecting, plus some information about the fly itself.

I recently was steelhead fishing on the Deschutes, and every now and then would hook up on the bush behind me. Those hook ups resulted in a cloud of October Caddis. Future years will tell of the impact that I had on the October Caddis population near the hole in the wall.

This pattern was tied by The Fly Shop in Redding. It looks like a good attractor, indicator, and imitation – all wrapped in one fly pattern.

October Caddis by The Fly Shop

Here is a quick pattern for the October caddis, using “A Girl’s Secret”, Sporty Girl foam, elk hair, and dun hackle.