caddis

No Sorry, I don´t know. I have forgotten the name. One may treat dubbing
etc with watershed, and this has a similar effect. Somebody told me that a
product called "Rain-X" or "Rain-Ex", which is used for treating car
windscreens, works very well, but I have not tried it.

My stuff is all over the web. Some may no longer be where it once was!
There are some articles here, which may be somewhat relevant;

http://www.sexyloops.com/connorsmetre/grayling5.shtml

I have written a very large number of articles in the meantime, but I don´t
keep track of them anymore, and I don´t even have copies of a large number.
This is not entirely intentional, but the result of time, and computer
attrition!

In my experience, most caddis are not active in very cold weather, and I
have never used them in winter. Trout and other fish have a closed season in
most of Europe, and it is then illegal to fish for them. I fished regularly
for grayling in Winter, and occasionally caught a few trout, but I don´t
target them, so I can´t really comment.

I don´t know anything at all about American streams and conditions, apart
from what I have read. America is a big place, and there are doubtless
countless examples of waters and conditions where fish can be caught in
winter. I know virtually nothing about steelhead, and the seatrout here (
Anadromous browns) are also in closed season after September. Seatrout here
do not feed in fresh water, and it is not necessary to use imitative
patterns for them. Usually lures of some description, often fantasy
creations, are used.

In very cold weather, (water temperature), resident trout are practically
dormant. Various research and checks done by my club, and of course
others, has revealed that most lie on the bottom, in many cases touching
the gravel etc, in low current areas. At this time, they are often severely
infested with leeches. Quite a few do not survive the winter. It might be
possible to tempt such a fish with a woolly bugger, or something similar,
but I don´t know anybody who would even seriously try to do so. It is
unlikely that a fish would survive such an encounter, and as they are in
generally poor condition at such times, they would not be very good eating.

Rainbows will still be active in cold weather, but my experience of these in
"wild" conditions is extremely limited. Most such fish I have caught have
been "escapees", from fish farms, etc, and it would be unsafe to draw any
general conclusions from the behaviour of such fish.

This is also doubtless dependent on the type of water, available feed, etc,
and my experience here is limited to only a few locations.

In Winter, I would generally concentrate on midges, as these are often the
only insects in evidence.Or more likely, I would be fishing in the Baltic
for cod and seatrout!

Regards and tight lines!

Mike Connor

About Winter caddies in Europe, two words to remember the Mesophylax
aspersus and the Leuctra hippopus. They are two species very common in
Spain. The Mesophylax appears in january and febreuary, 10-15 mm of wings,
ginger colour. It has been imitated with coq of León feathers for the
wings(colour "pardo flor de escoba"), hare's mask ribbed with stripped quill
for the body and genetic hackle of ginger colour.
The Leuctra is in fact a stonefly, 8-10 mm, imitated with a body of condor,
wings of dark dun or coq of León colour "indio negrisco" and dun hackle.
That patterns allow Flyfishing in special reservoirs dedicated to intensive
fisheries during the closed season since october to march, in these sunny
days without strong winding.