Old dogs and new tricks

Excerpt

The Elk Hair Caddis is the dry fly I go to first. It imitates an insect—the caddis fly—that lives in almost all trout streams. Even better, caddis flies seem to hatch all year long. The trout get used to seeing them every day and so are willing, at least sometimes, to check out a good imitation that floats over their heads.

It has been a long time since 1 have been in the field as a practicing conservationist. But I remember I always carried a soil probe with me, especially if 1 was headed to a site I hadn't worked on before. The probe was the basic tool I used to figure out what was going on and what I was up against. The Elk Hair Caddis is a lot like that soil probe. I use it to figure out what is going on if the trout aren't rising and there aren't any other clues to what might interest a willing trout. Sometimes I stick with the Elk Hair Caddis all day. Sometimes I switch to something more specialized as I figure out what is happening that day.

The Elk …