"One night in early spring 2007, I off-handedly whipped up a couple 'new' dries to try the following evening...it had occurred to me the one life stage of caddis I'd rarely even considered before had nothing to do with a nuance of emergence, but was rather at the reverse end of the cycle - a dead or dying insect.
I figured the body needed to emulate a 'wasted' natural's abdomen - wispy, yet with a touch of sparkle for what little trapped air might still be left.
A thread body ribbed with a strand of Flashabou, all coated in a coat of Softex. I wanted an abdomen that hung down in the surface film, rather than float high and dry on top.
I really felt a down-wing profile could be a key, and from 'retired' caddis I'd collected, I wanted those wings to be extremely frail and somewhat translucent, not opaque or with a pronounced profile.
I used Z-Lon yarn, each sparse wing tied tight against a peacock dubbing lump to make sure the yarn didn't simply collapse against the hook shank when wet.
I wanted the wings to be in, or even just below the water's surface, the same as with my mayfly Profile Spinners.
Finally, I wanted a parachute hackle, and a visible backwing silhouette - so I borrowed Ralph Cutter's ingenious idea from his wonderful E/C Caddis, and parachuted an elk hair wing.
Bottom line, my flies are usually highly designed, with lots of thought-out triggers, and I try hard to make them look really nice, as well.
This pattern was barely more than an afterthought, admittedly with a specific design trigger, but simply put, it's nothing special to look at!!
Don't let that fool you, like it normally would have me - this bug truly is something special, in my experience.
If you have a good caddis hatch (or dying egg-layer swarms) on a stream near you, give this a shot...shoot, if you just have FISH in a local river, tie one of these on and dead-drift it down, I think you may be pleasantly surprised!"
- Signature Tyer Mike Mercer
