Fox Poopah, an effective caddis pattern

Funny name, killer fly

About 12 years ago, I was fishing a local tailwater with a friend from the Bay area in Northern California. As the afternoon turned to evening, the caddis became very active and my friend handed me a couple of these funny looking caddis pupa patterns to try out. The pattern, as I found out, was named the Fox Poopah -- a pattern originated for the Sacramento River caddis hatches by Tim Fox. Google it if you want more information on the origins.

As it turned out, not only did the Poopah's outperform my tried and true caddis pupa patterns that evening, but I ended up fishing them during non-hatch situations later that year and did extremely well just nymphing with them. Since that time, these flies have held a standard spot on the varsity team of my fly boxes.

Including the video tutorial below, you'll see I tie these patterns now in several variations. So don't shoot me for not following the original pattern verbatim (the video is the closest to the original). Plus, those that know our style here at FFF, we don't pay a lot of attention to fly tying rules.

I tend to tie them in both bead-head and non-bead-head versions and I also prefer dubbing over Ostrich for the thorax. Depending on the color of the naturals, I typically vary about equally between the olive and the tan colored variations.