Spanish Caddis by Leon Links

Spanish Caddis

On a great modern Spanish dry fly, born out of tradition

Text and photos by Leon Links

At times tradition and innovation complement each other very well, and in Spanish fly tying you will find perfect examples of just that. Some well-known certainly are the Pardon de Meana and the Spanish Caddis, both dry flies that have their origins in the Ahogados, the old and traditional Spanish wet flies. In this article I particularly want to tell you about the latter, the Spanish Caddis. Moreover I will give some attention to the special feathers it is tied with.

From the mid- seventies
Spain has an exceptional and ancient fly-fishing tradition, but in the last three to four decades this country has seen an increasing number of anglers turning their minds to modern, international fly fishing. I have been able to keep a close track of this since I have fly fished for years in Spain, starting as a novice somewhere in the mid-1970s.
I travelled a lot in the interior of the country in the mountains, mostly in spring and summer, searching for rivers and lakes to try out my flies on Spanish trout, barbel, carp and bass. During my wanderings I met many Spanish fishermen, made a lot of friends and learned plenty about Spanish fly fishing.   

 
Gallo de León
One of the things I learned from the guys I met was that their flies were tied according to traditional recipes and always with the same materials: silk and the feathers of Leónese cocks. They told me these birds are bred in the north of Spain, in the province of León specifically for fly tying. I listened to all this with great interest, but I really got fascinated when I discovered that these birds have been bred for ages! Some years later I had confirmation of this when I learned that a famous old text, the Manuscripto de Astorga written in 1624 already contained descriptions of patterns tied with silk and feathers of Leónese cocks!
People have continued breeding these birds ever since. The environment and especially the climate in the north of León is ideal for breeding fowls that are widely known under the French name of ‘Coq de León’. This is because, outside of Spain, the French were the first to discover the unique qualities of these feathers. However, people in León – and elsewhere in Spain – commonly refer to them as ‘Gallo de León’.
Only feathers from the Leónese roosters are used, not from hens. Cocks are never killed for the sale of a complete cape or saddle. Good birds are far too precious for that, and instead, feathers are actually plucked off individual birds every three to four months. The feathers that are traded are saddle and spade feathers. 12 feathers of the same quality, shape and colouration are tied together in bundles, called ‘Mazos’. 

Various firms in Europe and America sell Gallo de León feathers nowadays, albeit in dribs and drabs. There are just not a lot of these birds around although their numbers have increased slightly in the last few decades. Fly tiers have good reason to covet these precious feathers, but I sometimes hear or read that most fly tiers know little more about them than that they are excellent for tailing dry flies. This is a pity because it doesn’t do justice to the special qualities of these feathers at all. In fact, they can be used in many different ways. I certainly join Darrel Martin when he says in his book, Fly-Tying Methods (1987), ‘There are no finer imitations, natural or synthetic, for tails, legs, and wings than the feathers of the Spanish Coq de León’. 

Properties  and classification
There are many different Pardo and Indio feathers and I can assure you that it takes quite some time to recognize the differences in colour, markings and quality, even if you work a lot with them. I will try to summarise some things you need to understand when you buy Pardo and Indio feathers.
First of all, good quality feathers have long, springy fibres with straight tips. They have an attractive gleam and about the same colour intensity on both sides of the feather.  
There are different shapes, but the plumas riñonada (heart, kidney), the more rigid saddle hackles with an oval shape, are usually offered commercially. They are also the best and most expensive. There are two distinct types of birds, the Indios and the Pardos. Indios have plain feathers with light stems and white fluff. There are quite some colour shades. The most important are the grey and brown colours: acerado (steel), avellanado (rusty brown dun) and rubión (red brown).
Pardos on the other hand mostly have feathers with spots on them, a dark stem and dark fluff. The dark spots, known in Spanish as ‘pencas’, can differ considerably in size from one feather to another. The marking structure and the colour of the feather determine further classification. There are so many Pardo types that it is confusing. Even the breeders don’t always use exactly the same denominations. So don’t worry, I will only go into the most important here.   
When the spots are dark, big and have a defined, regular distribution and look a bit like shells they are named Aconchado feathers (concha meaning shell). Aconchado feathers are often used for tying. The background is bone or ivory coloured (crudo or marfil). 
Corzuno feathers are all very finely mottled with many tiny specks all over with an irregular distribution. The name comes from ‘corzo’ meaning roebuck. Corzuno crudo has a bone coloured background and Corzuno oscuro a dark ivory coloured background.
We speak of Sarrioso if the feathers have a silvery or gold brown or dirty dark orange background covered with dark specks. The name comes from ‘sarrio’ meaning wild goat or chamois.
And then we have the famous Flor de escoba. This name means the flower of the escoba, the Spanish broom bush. Its main characteristic is its orange background that can be fine or heavily mottled.
The last varieties I will mention here are Negrisco (black) and Rubión (red brown). Some Rubión feathers have spots, others don’t have them. 

Spanish Caddis
After the 1950s a few Spanish fishermen began to focus on modern fly fishing. As a consequence they also took note of the equipment and flies in international fly fishing books and magazines, many of these being brought into Spain by foreign fishermen. Today conventional fly fishing is gaining in popularity in Spain and many Spanish fly tiers have started to look seriously at developing new and innovative fly patterns.  
One of the Spanish patterns that attracts growing local and international attention is the Spanish Caddis dry fly tied with a roof wing of Gallo de León cock hackle fibres. It is not by chance that this effective Caddis pattern became so popular. The Iberian Peninsula is rich in all sorts of caddis and stonefly species that are abundant on the rivers and lakes, so effective caddis imitations are naturally most important in this region. The locally occurring caddis species differ greatly in size, colour and wing markings all of which can be accurately imitated using these feathers.
When circumstances are difficult and fish are feeding selectively, delicate and semi-imitative flies become very important. Similarly when fly fishers have to deal with clear water and/or slow currents, good imitations are equally important, as fish are then more easily able to inspect what they are rising at. The dry Spanish Caddis can be of great help in such situations.
Pardo feathers with their speckled fibres make excellent imitations of caddis flies with mottled wings, while Indio feathers are most suitable for imitating the many shades of delicate grey, brown and black caddis and stonefly species and are particularly useful for tying small flies.
There will always be a Pardo or Indio colour that covers your need. Moreover, cock hackles produce very nice, robust Caddis wings that conceal the hook shank, give a substantial silhouette and also provide good floatability when lightly greased. On top of that, you are able to use relatively fine tippets that will not spin while casting due to the open structure of the wing fibres. The Spanish Caddis is being tied with a shoulder hackle, but Spanish tiers have started designing parachute style Caddis  too. In one of the photos in this article I show you an example.

Origin
The origin of the Spanish Caddis pattern can be traced back to the 1960s, the same period that fly fishing with the “heavy” line started to take on in Spain. The dry Spanish Caddis in fact has its origins in French Caddis dry fly patterns and, of course, in the Spanish wet Saltona (Caddis).
Several fly fishermen and tiers were involved in its development between 1962 and 1970. First there was Javier Pereda, an important pioneer of Spanish fly fishing, who met Frenchman Guy Plas in Cantabria in 1962. Guy Plas showed him his Caddis patterns tied with cock feather fibres.
Then there was señor Patri, the first professional tier of dry flies in Spain, who made flies for French fishermen who came to Spain to fish. He was asked to tie French flies like Ragot’s Universal, but after some time he started replacing the roof wing materials with Gallo de León feather fibres. That was in 1963.
In the late 1960s Luis Antunez Valerio and his friends started experimenting with the traditional Saltona, the wet Caddis pattern, after a few lousy days of fishing, when they felt that they must be doing something wrong. This also led to an important step in the development of the modern dry Spanish Caddis.

To conclude
Caddis patterns with roof wings tied with cock feather fibres were not widely used in Europe before the 1990s. Consequently you will not often come across them in the literature. You will find them for example in  Richard Walker’s book Fly Dressing Innovations (1974). His Red Sedge is still being used today, mainly in Great Britain.
The best known author in France who designed similar Caddis was Jean-Paul Pequegnot. His Caddis patterns Gloire de Goumois and Reine de Cademène are celebrated flies among French fly fishers. Pequegnot published them in his book Répertoire des mouches artificielles Françaises (1984) and in the 1987 American edition of his book, French Fishing Flies: Patterns and Recipes for Fly Tying.
Of all the Caddis patterns used in the 1980s in Europe, the Spanish Caddis has survived best in my opinion and its popularity is still growing, both in and outside of Spain. It has many enthusiastic followers, among them the writer of this piece and that for many years! 

With many thanks to Paco Soria, Antonio Gomez and Luis Meana Baeza for their help.