Rackelhanen

a Scandinavian one material caddis/sedge imitation.

By Kasper Mühlbach

	The finished fly  Kasper Mühlbach

Swedish Kenneth Boström tied this pattern about forty years ago. I stumbled over it some 15 years ago, but found it too revolutionary. I had just started tying flies and dry flies are, as you know, tied using dubbing, quills and hackles!

Many years later, I fished some fast streams in Mid-Sweden. I could not see my flies. My E:12s and ants drowned and the exciting dry fly fishing suddenly turned into blind flymph fishing. Not my cup of tea.

Fortunately, I had brought my vice and some materials including poly yarn for parachutes. I had brought all the colors including some light olive and light grey.

Variants You can tie variantions in all colors available. Dark body, light wing. A small one tied with black body and white wing is a classic, but also olive body and cream wings work well. Some like a front hackle too.

I needed a hi-floater which should have the same profile (more or less) as the E:12.
I knew how to tie the Rackelhane, and one afternoon I started threading, dubbing, finishing. I tied some in olive, some in grey and some with olive body and grey wing (advanced, eh?).

Now we started a more controlled dry fly fishing. We fished the rapids for bigger grayling, and we could follow our flies - also in the evening and night (during the summer, nights are very bright in mid- and northern Sweden).
We had great fishing during the night, as Rackelhanen is a dry fly which can be fished actively by twitching the rod or fishing it in the skating caddis style or by pulling in the line in some fast, interrupted pulls, which will take the fly subsurface. At the end of the pull it will start emerging to the surface again, drawing a comet's tail of glittering bubbles, while releasing the air trapped in the wing.

	Dry fly water  Kasper Mühlbach

Then it will emerge on the surface with a small "plop".

One day it started raining, the water level rose and the dry fly fishing became less productive. Then we used Rackelhanen as indicator and tied a nymph to the hook bend, so it would dance seductivly maybe half a meter (20") under the yarn caddis.

So, if you are looking for a hi-floating, cheap, easy-to-tie, multi-purpose caddis imitation, you should give this pattern a go.

Go!

Surprised dace  Kasper Mühlbach	The dorsal fin of a grayling  Kasper Mühlbach	Unhooked grayling  Kasper Mühlbach

Rackelhanen

1. Cut some poly yarn into 1 cm pieces.
2. Cover the hook shank with thread. Go a little bit down the hook bend.
3. Make the thread come back again, so it hangs app. over the hook point.
4. Dub the thread with the prepared poly yarn.
5. Wind the dubbed thread to a little bit down the hook bend and back again, ending about an eye width from the eye. This should make the fly a bit more volumnious to the rear.
6. Tie in poly yarn as the wing on one side of the hook.
7. Bend the poly yarn over to the other side of the hook.
8. Secure the wings
9. Dub the wing base with poly yarn and form a nice head.
10. Tease and trim the body to form "legs" and trim the wings.

Step 1  Kasper Mühlbach	Step 2  Kasper Mühlbach
Step 3  Kasper Mühlbach	Step 4  Kasper Mühlbach
Step 5  Kasper Mühlbach	The finished fly  Kasper Mühlbach

Top view  Kasper Mühlbach

Go to article start ^ User comments

From: jan johansen · jany·at·blueyonder.co.uk Submitted September 19th 2007 Hi Kasper i do like this fly going now to have a go, it just looks right . Thanks Jan

Did you find the above interesting?
People who looked at the above also looked at these pages: A Novice Graylingfishers Abstract 1999 For the last last three years, some of my friends and I have bee... Fly patterns Section: The best fly patterns from all over the globe Sören and Sara Senior pike fisher Sören Essebo invited junior pike fisher Kaspe... Mart's Parachute Ant During the warmer months of the year, they are just about anywhe...	This other story related to "grayling" might also interest you: Realistic Flies Trout and Grayling: Realistic flies are not only for the display case. As Steve Thornton shows us, realism can also be applied to practical and effective fishing flies. Trout and grayling beware! Click here for more. Click to see other stories with the keyword "grayling"
A few random articles for your entertainment Night fishing Night fishing for sea trout is one of Martin's favorite types of fishing. In this podcast he will take you on a night fishing trip and let you get some of the impressions that he got during the dark hours of a night on the Swedish coast. June 21st 2006 Four stream rods This is not a review as such, but then again. GFF partner Martin Joergensen got the chance to play with four great and very different rods from ECHO, Harvest, Partridge and Scierra. All are light stream rods, but they still display large differences when fished side by side. October 31st 2005 More Small Flies Ed Engle has given us the 2nd half of his treatise on small fly fishing, joining his prior work “Tying Small Flies” to give readers a true master’s course on the topic of angling with – well – small flies. Another must read. August 8th 2005 My Favorite Dad In Virginia, the rivers are full of crayfish. Author Michael Smith AKA Rybolov went last week to the South Fork of the Shenandoah, and in a meter-square area along the shoreline, there had to be at least 30 crayfish. That may be why Skip's Dad works so well there. June 29th 2006