Fly Tying- A new twist: The Burned Chenille Cased Caddis

before

and after

there are many ways to create a caddis case, here’s just a few:
– the standard spun and trimmed or burned deer hair which looks pretty nice but doesn’t help the fly sink much as its a buoyant material (and i really don’t like doing this kind of stuff with deer hair. in fact, i don’t like tying with deer hair at all !)
– dubbing which is a lot more pleasanter to work with but never quite looks like a caddis case. (that probably doesn’t matter fishing-wise, its just not an appealing look and doesn’t strike that fly ‘confidence’ thingy; that all-important selection sense that dictates which fly to use)
– some even glue teeny-tiny stones to a support to form a very realistic case but that’s way too anal for this guy…

– and then, as we’ll see in the first minutes of the video, a technique that at first looks like a delirious joke that then transforms into the lovely tube-blob in the pic above and to make it all even better, this happens with our second favourite element: fire !

i just tried this method (just the case part), its super quick, about a minute to tie in and form the whole ‘body’ and very easy.
after that i tried a different method of melting on a second body by removing it from the vise and holding the hook with forceps leaving more room to work (melt) with. this helped to make the body more symmetric, specially the butt end near the vise jaws.
(an added bonus here is you won’t ruin or discolour the anodisation of your vise’s jaw)
second variant was to wet my fingers with gooey saliva to smooth out the body instead of using a needle. this works really well to get a quite perfect shape but you have to get your timing right or you end up with a cased finger combo !…

enough words, on to this great tutorial by Hammer Creek Fly Fishing.  enjoy !