Bucktooth Callibaetis Nymph

Curtis - April 26, 2017

I look at my stillwater boxes and besides my Chironomid box, the Callibaetis collection usually gets the most pattern swapping from season to season. Like any pattern you fish with, you end up tweaking it over time. I've been working more and more with similar pattern versions just mixing up colors and, most importantly, weight.

The Bucktooth Callibaetis is a simple nymph or emerger pattern that has no added weight. It's a good dropper on a weightless rig or a rig with a weighted anchor fly. I've also used it dropped from a dry fly. A floating or intermediate line is a good way to present this type of pattern, although we've done really well lately with the RIO Midge Tip lines (currently very difficult to get in the US).

But at the end of the day, as Cheech and I have been finding, a good soft hackle selection in your callibaetis box is a must. We had some crazy good results with his Callibaetis Soft Hackle and a few other patterns still in the works.

The genesis for this pattern was driven mostly out of the need to have a good buggy nymph that didn't sink too quickly. After one trip where I realized most of my Callibaetis were sinking too quickly, I added a few of these to the mix on the next trip out and found they were the ticket for times when fish were focusing on bugs closer to the surface.