About the Author

Joe Rotter

Joe is the "blogger in chief" here at Red's in addition to being our guide service manager and partner here at Red's. He is a father of 3 spunky children his wife Kelly can only be found fishing when the temperature gets above 85 degrees and the fish are gobbling up dry flies.

In addition to being a fly fishing junkie, Joe is a hard core bowhunter, is a volunteer Hunter's Eductation Instructor, and loves riding horses with his kiddos. Joe still guides a small part of the time but spends most of his time working on web marketing, travel, and helping customers find the right tools and information for the job.

Roger Ate a Dozen Caddis Last Night

May 1, 2015

The Yakima River Canyon's iconic hatch, the Mother's Day Caddis Hatch, finally popped last night down around Big Pines. Roger inhaled at least a dozen Caddis in the process of trying to catch some fish on dry flies! The hatch was super thick and really got rolling around 6 pm. The fish were not eating adult Caddis very well at all, which is typical in the early stages of the hatch. There are so many pupae and emergers that they tend to feed underneath. Roger said that the trout were litterally pushing the adults out of the way to get to an emerger.

The top fly last night was the CDC Caddis Emerger in size #18 and #14. Use this as a trailer bug behind your elk hair Caddis dry fly. It will float in the surface film and trigger strikes when the fish aren't willing to come up for an adult. Caddis tend to "pop" when they hit the surface and fly away quick. This makes emergers even more appealing because they don't fly away very quickly.

CDC Caddis Emerger

The X-Caddis is a great dry fly as well, it has a 'trailing shuck' that leads the trout to believe this bug is stuck in the surface film and struggling to take off. Great bug in both Peacock and Tan.

Super Pupae

Here is what the Caddis Larvae of the American Grannoms Caddis looks like. This will go through a metamorphosis and become an adult. As this happens there are a lot of these buggers in the river. Like hundreds of thousands. Maybe millions.

BUY THIS FLY!

Super Pupae - Bright Green - This fly is a freaking killer in the early stages of this hatch.

Super Pupae - Olive - Mix it up. Fish bright green and olive, get dirty and put on a double nymph setup with both flies.

I just went down to the river a few minutes ago and the hatch is absolutely blowing up. I didn't see any fish feeding on dry flies but overall conditions are perfect! I think if you got in the boat and covered some water right now the headhunting would be good!