Razor Foam Caddis tying tutorial

Razor foam Caddis, simple but effective fly.

Three basic materials for this fly. Standard dry fly hook, deer or elk hair for the wing. Standard brown dry fly hackle, and of course razor foam. For this pattern I like the razor faom from Wapsi. It is a little more elastic and that helps with getting a nicely tapered body.

Step 1: Lay down a base of thread on the hook shank

Step 2: Cut a narrow strip of razor foam, taper at the tie point. The thickness of razor foam I use is based on the hook size, size 14 and smaller I use .5mm thickness. Size 12 and up I use the 1mm thickness

Step 3: Tie in the razor foam, I lke to tie in at mid point of the the hook shank and bind it down towards the bend of the hook

Step 4: Wrap the razor foam foward, adjust tension on the razor foam to create a nicely tapered body. Wind forward to just past mid point of hook shank

Step 5: Clean and stack a clump of deer or elk hair for the wing. Tie it in and bind the ends. Cover the ends with thread. With right type of elk or deer hair you can tie this fly down to a size 20 with out any problems.

Step 6: Select and tie in the apporiate sized dry fly hackle. I tie them shining side up.

Step 7: Wrap the hackle forward and tie of at the head. Do not crowd the head like I just did

Completed fly

I tie these also in black, olive and yellow