Back in the winter of 2011, I obtained some natural emu feathers. Initially, I had in mind tying a few sandworm gurgler-inspired patterns with them. The feathers were beautiful and made wonderfully enticing tails on sandworm imitations. I fished those successfully for stripers on various beaches along Boston’s North Shore.
Then, in January of 2012, while sitting at the vise dreaming of summer trout fishing, an idea suddenly appeared: why not attempt a dry fly with these feathers?
Some of the emu barbules were slightly stiffer, while others were extremely soft. At the same time, I had long been fond of clipped-hackle flies. The Klinkhåmer was one of my favorite prospecting flies back then, both on Driftless streams and on the small karst rivers of Eastern Serbia.
I also always loved soft-hackled flies and was deeply inspired by old Balkan fly patterns that used local wild bird feathers such as owl, jay, duck and crow. Emu reminded me somewhat of owl feather in texture and movement, although structurally the feather is, of course, quite different.
So I combined these ideas and came up with this impressionistic caddis imitation. The pattern is essentially what happens when a saltwater material, Balkan soft-feather sensibility, and limestone-stream trout fishing converge into one fly.
I decided to call it the Sisevac Caddis, after the small Serbian village of Sisevac, my fishing home base on the Crnica River.
Sisevac itself carries layers of memory that go beyond fishing. Long before the mining period, the area was already shaped by the presence of the 14th-century St. Sisoje of Sinai monastery, from which the village of Sisevac takes its name, embedded in the older cultural landscape of the Crnica valley. The river was later described in the 19th century by Hungarian naturalist Félix Philipp Kanitz, who recorded the region’s karst formations and the clarity of its waters in his travel and scientific observations. In the early 20th century, it was still shaped by its mining-era character, and daily life moving closely with the rhythm of extraction and water. A family photograph from the 1930s — taken during a wedding in Sisevac — preserves a moment of stillness within that motion: figures gathered in formal dress, light falling across a landscape that is neither rural nor industrial, but suspended between states. It belongs to a time when the river and its valley were not yet “observed,” but simply lived within, as part of an ongoing flow of hard work, travel, and gathering.
Recipe
Hook: Size 12–14 curved wide-gape hook (such as Daiichi 1130)
Body: Palmered natural emu hackle, clipped on the inner side of the curve
Thorax: Golden brown or Peacock Ice Dub, or similar material
Parapost: Polypropylene
Parachute hackle: Ginger, brown, or sandy dun rooster hackle, depending on local caddis coloration
I first tested the fly in Iowa’s Driftless region and it worked beautifully. Later, I brought it to Serbia, where it performed wonderfully on my old home streams. My old friend Dave Skok liked the pattern as well, and we fished it successfully near his home waters on the Deerfield River in western Massachusetts.
The Sisevac Caddis is something of a semi-damp dry fly. It can imitate a crippled or emerging caddis, but it may also pass for a spent insect—or simply whatever the trout wants it to be at that particular moment. I believe much of the fly’s effectiveness comes from the way light refracts through the emu barbules. The fibers move almost like CDC, although they do benefit from a good treatment with quality desiccant powder before fishing. A powder such as Tiemco Shimazaki Fly Shake gives the fly what I like to call a subtle “moth factor.”
It is an excellent flatwater fly, best fished dead drift or with tiny twitches. At the same time, it floats well enough for moderate riffled water and lands on the surface like a whisper—something I have always loved about this pattern.
Image references
• Figure 1: Sisevac wedding photograph (1930s), family archive.
A historical image from the mining-era settlement period in Sisevac, capturing community life in the Crnica valley.
• Figure 2: Crnica River spring system, Sisevac.
The emergence of the river from its underground course through limestone and rock formations.
• Figure 3: Small wild brown trout, Crnica River.
Native trout from the system that the Sisevac Caddis is intended to suggest.
• Figure 4: The Sisevac Caddis fly pattern.
A clipped-hackle, emu-based caddis imitation developed from mixed saltwater and Balkan soft-feather influences.
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