Agostino Roncallo’s ‘Speedy Caterpillar’ pattern.
A few years ago, Aldo Silva, a good Italian fly tyer, developed an artificial to imitate a caterpillar that curls as it falls onto the water.
This pattern used a metal wire fixed to an elastic band under tension. When finished the band was cut from this artificial metal support and the rubber band sprung back to its natural state and, consequently, the imitation curled up like a real caterpillar when it falls onto the water.
I have a tendency to simplify things. I thought you could get a caterpillar to curl more easily without using the metal.
My caterpillar is not as good as what Aldo ties, but I do not care if my patterns look beautiful or ugly; I only care that they are effective.
Dressing
1) Using a grub hook, tie in six long fibres of three different colours of Marabou feathers (or ostrich) roughly half way along their length and a few millimetres behind the eye of the hook.
2) At the same time, tie in an elastic band also half way along its length.
3) Pull the rubber band under tension and wrap the marabou around it. Then wrap the tying thread up the feathers and rubber band with large wraps.
4) When you reach the length that you want the body, keep the rubber band under tension, and wind back with the turns of thread to reach the hook.
5) At this point, cut off the excess of the elastic and marabou. The body will immediately curl into a lifelike natural position.
6) Move the thread to near the eye of the hook and repeat the operation to extend a second portion of the body ahead of the eye. Again wrap thread back to the shank of the hook.
7) Tie off on the hook shank and the pattern is complete.
Some observations
The tying is simple; the only thing that determines success is keeping proper tension on the elastic band.
To determine how long to stretch the elastic to get just the right body length needs practice.
Caterpillars can be fairly large, but with time and experience at fishing these imitations, I have come to the conclusion that small imitations are far more effective.
