Palomino Caddis v2.0
Cheech - September 10, 2017
The Palomino Caddis has been one of our most popular dry fly patterns for the past several years (Palomino Caddis), but that doesn't mean that we stopped thinking of ways to improve it. We fish the palomino caddis before, during, and after caddis hatches, and it seems to have a great hatch matching and attracting quality. I think part of the reason for these updates to the pattern is that we have been floating our local river quite a bit, and high buoyancy is an absolute must. We added another piece of CDC, some flash to the hook shank, and most importantly, we used the Daiichi 1130 which has a slight offset so it hooks really nicely when the fish slash at it (as they tend to do during a caddis hatch. One of my favorite ways to fish it is to cast out, and slightly skate it right when it hits the water, then I dead drift it until the end of the drift, or until it gets devoured by a fish with an appetite bigger than its brain.
Tie some up and skate it, dead drift it, match the hatch, or fish it as an attractor... Chances are it will catch you some fish.
~ Cheech
P.S. you should use a CDC compatible floatant with this fly. We either use Lochsa, or TMC Dry Magic