How to Tie a Light Cahill

A light cahill is a dry fly pattern tied to a fishing hook. This fly uses a classic pattern. It is a variation of the mayfly pattern, and once you tie a few, you can make variants of the light cahill such as the dark cahill. To make a light cahill, you will need a dry hook size 10 or above and a 6/10 or 8/10 thread. You can include a tail or leave it out, but the wing must be in place. You can use elk hair, calf tail or duck feather for the wing.

Dry fly hook, size 10 or higher
Yellow dun uni-thread, 6/0 weight
Yellow wood duck flank feather
Ginger or cream hackle fibers
Ginger or cream hackle
Ginger or cream dubbing
Head cement

Instructions

- 1
  Wrap the thread around the middle of the hook shaft about 1 mm behind the eye. Keep winding the thread forward until you cover two-thirds the length of the shaft.
- 2
  Tie a small bunch of the yellow feather fibers with five tight wraps of the thread in the wing position. Divide the bunch in two and tie both arms in front and in back with a figure-8 wrap to make them stay in an upright position.
- 3
  Wind the thread over the wing back to the end and up to the bend of the hook. Tie a few colored hackle fibers to make a tail at the end of the thread.
- 4
  Apply a little ginger dubbing to 3 inches of thread and roll the thread between your fingers to make a rope. Wind this thread on the fly near bend of the hook.
- 5
  Tie a ginger hackle just behind the wing and wind it four times behind and three times in front of the wing. Make a whip finish at the head with four turns, then cut off the excess thread. Place a drop of head cement on the knot and allow it to soak into the thread and hackle stem.

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