Along the Arkansas River
They’ve huddled inside their homes through the cold Rocky Mountain winter, waiting for this moment. Now as the warm winds blow and another spring tiptoes in, they are ready to emerge. They will feel the sunshine. They will be happy.
They are caddis flies, specifically brachycentrus occidentalis.
Although the same description also covers the swarm of rod-waving fly-fishers (they have no fancy scientific Latin name, although hookus ohn nosei would work) who have also huddled inside through the snowy winter waiting for this big moment. Because when the caddis swarm, the trout in this fish-rich river go all Kirstie Alley.
The only difference, really, between the bugs and the anglers is that one has acquired a taste for Scotch.
“Oh yeah, the fly-fisherman have a big impact,” said Chad Dixon, owner of Arlie Dale’s Jug Liquors in the riverside town of Salida. “For a month, I sell lots of upscale Scotch.”
It’s not all about the Scotch, of course.
It’s also about expensive Cuban cigars.
“The good ones,” said Dixon, who lays in a heavy supply of $10 stogies to satisfy the demand. “Arturo Fuente. I only stock them during the caddis-fly hatch.”
The fly-fishers must also sleep. Some even pause to eat during the frenzy, when the fish – predominantly brown trout – rise to gulp the caddis flies from the surface and an angler can, under ideal weather conditions, catch 75 or more in a day. (Nearly all fly anglers release the fish.)
And businesses flourish.
“I don’t know of a comprehensive study, but the impact on the local economies during the caddis hatch is big,” said Lee Hart, marketing director for the Chaffee County Visitor’s Bureau. “We have a huge spike, for example, in room-occupancy rates during the next three or four weeks.”
All because of an oddly named bug. Entomologists say the name is derived from the Shakespearean-era word “cadace,” which referred to a ribbon sold by traveling salesmen, who were thus known as “cadice men.” They pinned samples of the ribbon and other cloth wares to their clothing. Caddis flies attach bits of leaves and twigs to the outside of their larval cases.
And in 21st century Colorado, a lot of people are about to make big money because of the cadace … cadice … the moth-like bugs.
Take Bill Edrington, co-owner of Royal Gorge Anglers, a fly shop in Cañon City, who is about to get little sleep and lots of cash. A retired criminologist and now an amateur entomologist, Edrington has stumbled through 15 of the annual caddis- hatch phenomenons.
“Even during regular times, I only sleep four or five hours a night,” said Edrington, 57. “During the caddis hatch, that comes in quite handy.”
He and business partner Jan Carson will work 15 hours a day, seven days a week, for about three weeks. That schedule will start any day now, when the water warms into the high 50s, the caddis emerge from their cases and struggle to the surface and the females lay the eggs that will incubate until next April.
Mostly he will sell artificial caddis flies – small bits of foam and elk hair and other material tied to a hook and replicating the insect in various life stages.
The numbers he recites are staggering.
“In about three weeks,” he said, “we will sell about 1,000 dozen adult caddis flies and about 500 or 600 dozen more in larvae and pupal stages.”
At $2 each, Royal Gorge Anglers will ring up some $40,000 on flies alone. And during the caddis fever, at least four of five customers a day will, Edrington said, plop down $500 for a new fly rod.
“We do 20 percent of our annual business in the next 20 days,” he said. “When I get to the shop at 7 a.m., there will be a line of people waiting at the door.”
It is, he said, about being part of a life cycle.
“Fly-fishermen are like the caddis,” he said. “You’re inside for the winter fighting a case of the shack nasties, and now it’s time to come out. To live. It’s not about catching trout. It’s about the need to get out and walk around and drink a cold beer and rejuvenate.”
And to stand in one of America’s great rivers, gaze at the majestic, snow-covered Rocky Mountains and take in the smell of the new spring air. You know, once the smoldering $10 cigar goes out.
Staff writer Rich Tosches writes each Wednesday and Sunday. He can be reached rtosches@denverpost.com.
