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Light Cahill

Fishing

Light Cahill

By Luca Montanari

There are many factors deciding the food preferences of various fish species. The “fliers”, with their small hairy imitations, have without shadow of doubt a large responsibility for the feeding behaviour of trout and grayling, however, it is legitimate to suppose that the fish prefer some insects because they are tastier to eat. If we consider the females of the Baetis scambus and of the Baetis muticus, as an example, we can notice that the trout often prefer them to any other insect, taking them selectively even if they are present on the water in a small number. From here, in order to overcome the shyness of our adversaries, we can use a small Light Cahill, an artificial which is very effective during the hatching of the B. scambus and B. muticus.

Materials List:
Hooks:
Thread:
Yellow
Tails:
Fibres of a cream cock hackle
Body:
Dubbing of cream polypropylene
Ribbing:
Fine copper wire
Wings:
Tufts of grey mallard flank feather
Hackle:
Light blue dun and cream
Tying instructions:
Step 1:
I take the first step of the building process of the Light Cahill by fixing the hook into the vice jay and tying in the yellow thread on the shank, which I use for nailing, over the bend, a tuft of fibres stripped off from a large cream coloured cock hackle. The tails so created must have a length approximately equivalent to the hook shank .

Photos and fly by Luca Montanari
Step 2:
I wax a short stretch of thread and I apply a pinch of cream coloured polypropylene to it to make a compact dubbing. The dubbing is then used to form the fly body along the rear two-thirds of the hook shank.

Step 3:
From a blue dun and a cream cock neck, I select two hackles that have the fibres as long as the hook shank and I tie them in front of the body. From a grey flank feather of a mallard, I cut a small tuft of fibres and I tie it on the hook, placing it in the middle section of the front third of the shank and with the point of the fibres extended upwards. At the end of this implantation, the wings must have nearly the same length as the hook shank.

Step 4:
With the apposite pliers, I wrap, one after the other, the two hackles around the front part of the hook, passing them behind and in front of the wing structure to create a fluffy collar.
Step 5:
Next I cut off the surplus of the hackles and I create the fly head with some turns of the yellow thread, which is then finished with a whip-finish.
Step 6:
A light layer of glue uniformly distributed over the head will prevent the thread to untie itself, increasing the resistance of the Light Cahill. My imitation can now be introduced into the fly box, ready to be used during a spring or a summer day, when I see some yellowish Ephemeras on the river surface.

The Light Cahill is one of the 86 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.

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