CDC Tipula

Trout, but also grayling that live in overfished waters, tend to develop selective behaviour towards traditional Ephemera and Trichopter imitations, which is unfortunate considering that this group of flies are commonly used by anglers. What can be a good idea then, especially when fishing a river or a lake regularly visited by the fishermen and subjected to catch and release regulations, is to try out imitations with less common shapes, such as caterpillars, crickets, or crane flies.

A good example of such an imitation is the crane fly: insects that are often the most popular terrestrials along river and lake banks, especially during summer or early autumn. These Diphteras often appear in proximity to the water when the sun sets, or when the sky starts to cloud over. In fact, falling air temperatures incites the sexually mature daddy-long-legs to join together and find a humid place to lay their eggs.

Generally, the dressing of daddy-long-legs suggests the use of quite big hooks with long shanks, and the realisation of a dense hackle collar, which gives good buoyancy to the fly. This solution, however, generally compromises the position of the artificial on the water: the hook bend may sink and the hackle collar can draw up at sunburst shape on the surface; an inconvenience that I think is really irritating and that I wanted to resolve with a piece of a cock hackle stem, putting it over a not-too-big hook in a way to let it extend out from the hook bend for a few millimetres, building a portion of the body over it.

This method reduced the total weight of the artificial, allowing me to decrease the quantity of hackle necessary for making the fly float. I subsequently substituted the hackle with a dense cul-de-canard dubbing, establishing that this change gave a more realistic aspect to the imitation, at the same time improving its stability on the water. This was the “birth” of the CDC Tipula, an artificial that I learnt to appreciate for its versatility and remarkable alluring power, especially if used for tempting trout when “search fishing”.

Tying Instructions:

	Step 1: I start building the CDC Tipula by fixing, a piece of a big cock hackle stem over the hook shank with a pale brown thread, letting it extend out from the bend for a length of two centimetres.	Photos and fly by Luca Montanari
		Step 2: I turn the hook 180° in the vice jaw and wrap the thread along half of the hackle stem, tying in a fine stem of a blue dun cock hackle, which I will use next for the ribbing. With a pinch of hare’s fur, I prepare a compact dubbing over a short stretch of thread previously treated with wax. Then, after turning the hook over again in the vice, I wrap the dubbing around the section of stem covered by thread.
	Step 3: I make the ribbing with broad turns of the fine blue dun hackle stem around the body.
		Step 4: From a natural red cock neck, I select two long and large hackles and tie their tips on the middle of the front third of the hook shank. These feathers must be fixed in a “V” shape, like the wings of a real insect.
	Step 5: I then prepare the legs of the fly, cutting off six long fibres from a pheasant tail feather, making a small knot at the centre of each of them. The function of this knot is to make them more similar to real legs and to enlarge the supportive surface on the water, increasing as a consequence the fly buoyancy.
		Step 6: From some natural grey cul-de-canard feathers, I cut off the fibres I need for making the dense dubbing for the thorax with the special dubbing spinner
	Step 7: I compose the cul-de-canard dubbing and turn it around the front third of the hook shank, and after each two turns of it I tie in a couple of legs under the hook.
		Step 8: With some turns of thread behind the hook eye, I make the fly head and then I whip finish over it .
	Step 9: I cut off the piece of hackle stem that extend out from the body. Next I apply a drop of clear varnish to the head.
		Step 10: The CDC Tipula is now ready to be used during our next fishing expedition, useful for tempting a trout that are feeding on big and succulent terrestrial.
	The CDC Tipula is one of the 88 flies described in Luca’s recent book entitled “Flies – Mosche da pesca”. To get more information about it click on http://www.edolimpia.it/lev_1/pesca/top_pesca.htm or send an e-mail to libri@edolimpia.it) . Although it’s written in Italian, it should be interesting to many fly tiers due to the many excellent photographs. Luca Montanari