Tying a Caddis with Catgut

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Tying a Caddis with Catgut is simple. Only a few tricks should be known:

1. take in consideration that the catgut materials is translucent an the color of the fly will be different when gets wet.
2. catgut is stiff when is dry so keep it in warm water for a few min ( 3-5min ) in front of you in tying time on your tying desk.
3. keep catgut in water only the length that you want to use, not all material.
4. when is wet the volume will be bigger, when is dry the volume will me smaller so when you tie the flies with wet catgut will look fabulous. When the flies goes dry will look ugly , don’t worry, in water will look again great and all fish will love them.

Bellow is a video about tying a nymph using this material:

So as you can see is not difficult at all to tye a caddis with catgut, more than that this material was a big secret for many years between competitors due to realistic look.
You can use it not only for caddis pupae but also for different types of nymphs from small and very small nymphs up to big stone flies nymphs too. You can use the material colored or you ca color by yourself using acid dye or permanent markers.

Bellow is a small mayfly nymph tied to be used in water column using French style : peche a vue. Is tied on size #16

micro-olive with catgut for trout and grayling by lucian vasies

Bellow is a caddis pupae with gills on the body:

catgut pupae with gills by lucian vasies

And for slow running waters or for lakes a red blood buzzer:

buzzer with catgut by lucian vasies

The sky is the limit in tying nymphs using this material. Is nice, is resistant , looks perfect when gets wet and it’s easy to use. So catgut should be in everybody tying kit and everybody should have a few flies tied with catgut in their boxes.

4 Comments
  • Robert Stark
    February 10, 2016

    where can i by this material? i live in the US and can’t find it here. how much does it cost?

  • David
    May 17, 2016

    I tried to look at the” tying a micro caddis with catgut” but it will not allow me to view it.

    • Lucian Vasies
      May 21, 2016

      Hi David,
      Thanks for feedback, I will check to see why is the problems with the photos.

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