Above photo: CDC winged Caenis on a #20 Hanak 390 BL. I often tie the adult dun
on various light wire emerger hooks. The Hanak 390 is a wonderful frame to work with.
Experiment with your lightest wire hooks for this pattern.
(click on any photo for magnification)
Is the Caenis Mayfly really “The Fisherman's Curse?” Honestly, that's a term I get tired of primarily because Caenis are not hard to tie, identify, or fish with. If you have never cast a midge or anything smaller than a size #18 to a rising fish, then I guess yes, you are susceptible to “the curse.” So I'm going to try to demystify this alleged curse for you in this entry so you don't have to spew expletives and have sudden-onset Tourette's during these very common hatches. It's not as spooky as everyone makes it out to be.
Above photo: Vincent Marinaro in his book The Modern Dry Fly Code
reinvented the tactics for tying and presenting the “minutiae”
he simply moved past the old semantics and old Halfordian rules
and carved a new niche in dry fly history.
Above photo: A Tiemco 206 BL makes for a great all-around canvas for Caenis patterns,
seen here a loop-wing Caenis on a #20.
Caenis Essentials:These little mayflies come off the water in the early hours of the morning and evening. Hatches can last for prolonged periods throughout the night or well into the morning.
The Months of activity/start dates: Late May or June
Peak Months: June and July
End Game: August through Early September
Caenis/Basic General Characteristics: White or cream abdomen, three caudal filaments (tail fibers), thorax plate very pronounced and appears black, Wings can appear translucent or milky white depending upon the insect's life stage, no bigger than 7mm typically in spring creeks in the Northeast.
Above photo: A CDC dun on a #20 Tiemco 206 BL.
Midging specific hatches can be very technical, so fishing a Caenis hatch is no different; most certainly, the sizes face the same hurdles. There is no real difficulty in identifying a tiny mayfly like the Caenis from a tiny midge. Midges have no tails; they typically do not have white or cream bodies and don't have a pronounced distended dark-plated thorax, as well as very identifiable mayfly wing profiles. The basic wing geometry is indicative of pretty much every species of mayfly. So deciphering these insects from other minutiae is not a stretch. Typically, Caenis emerge prolifically, so identification may take only a few minutes if you can locate cobwebs filled with these tiny morsels. Are the trout picky during a Caenis hatch? Sure, but so are most brown trout in clear, shallow water sipping tiny midges you cannot see. So we can stop complaining about “curses” and simply use our laws of deduction and decipher what is happening on the chessboard. Once you have gotten over the legendary stigma of this fly, use what you know to catch that brown trout that seems so unforgiving.
Above photo: A shucking Caenis emerger on a TMC #20 206 BL.
Caenis, depending on where you are located on the globe, vary in size. In the Northeast here in the US, I primarily see them no bigger than 5 or 6 mm, so it's safe for me to tie these on size 20 hooks down to 24s, nothing bigger! Don't go tying on Caenis patterns in size 18 or larger; you're wasting your time. Remember to always err on the smaller side than you think. The fish are dialed in on the uniform scale of this insect; anything out of the ordinary is going to freak them out. During a Caenis hatch, casting to a large riser, you may only have one shot at a 20-inch brown on the rise for these little snacks. I was up in Canada, west of Toronto, on the Grand River fishing a nice Caenis hatch in the morning hours, and watched a guide and his client make tons of floats over many risers not getting the time of day from the man in the brown suit. Finally, I said, "What size are you using?" The guide said, "Size 16." I gave him a 20, and he grudgingly put it on his client's tippet. Less than a minute later, his client made shrieking noises as if he had just cracked the Da Vinci Code. With Caenis, keep your sizes roughly between #20 and #24, and you will be fine. Building your confidence in micropatterns is essential. It's not rocket science; it's using what you know and putting it into motion. Never second-guess your instincts and simply keep making the same mistake twice. A “curse” is an excuse for the feeble-minded.
Above photo: The venerable Tiemco 531 #22 short-shank, wide-gape is another
great thorax-style hook for Caenis duns. You can see in the dubbed thorax very
fine veins of UV. Less is more with this pattern!
Often, these flies come off gravel bars in very shallow water and flush down into a pool or a slower run where collectively the trout are waiting to sip them in. I typically tie these patterns in an emergent form of some kind, a cripple, and an adult. Keeping it simple stupid is key when tying these up. Do not overcomplicate the patterns at this size or use wads of CDC and coarse dubbing mixtures loaded with tinsel and other bulky crap like the stuff you see plastered all over YouTube and Instagram. Keep it tight and minimalistic. You're not enticing something swimming around a kiddie pool at Chuck E. Cheese's. Use the finest Kapok or Superfine dubbing you can get, the lightest fine-wire hooks, and very fine GSP threads, such as Semperfli Nano Silk, in 18/0. One of the dubbing mixtures I like for Caenis thoraxes is SLF Spikey Squirrel in a “dark brown”; it's almost black but not quite. You can cut it with Superfine or Kapok. It does have trace amounts of UV, but extremely minimal.So the “Fisherman's Curse” can easily become a self-fulfilled prophecy that honestly could undermine any hatch or fly fishing situation. Whether it's midges, trico madness, a micro-baetis uprising, or an October bout of black caddis with rage-induced myocardial infarction, it will always be a chess game no matter what. So get used to using your powers of simple observation, deduction, and reason; the “curse” is in your head.
Thanks for letting me share! ~Clint Bova
www.cjbovarods.com
