On the use of Snowshoe Rabbit Foot- A brief treatise on the Flies for January 2004
By: Sheldon Seale
Snowshoe (ss) Rabbit Foot hair is a great substitute for deer hair, CDC, calf tail or body hair and even Antron yarn in some applications. The only colour that isn’t really available is white (although ss can be bleached). Patterns that use Snowshoe can be very simple because of the features inherent in this material. It’s buggy looking, durable, naturally water repellent and it has the kind of lustre usually only associated with Polar Bear hair (another great material but Polar Bear's give up their hair much less readily than rabbits!).
Let’s take a classic pattern and rebuild it with Snowshoe and see what the differences are. Al Troth’s Elk-Hair Caddis is a standard. Tying is reasonably straightforward. The materials are readily available and even the most novice of tyers can usually get it looking right in a couple of tries.
Troth’s EHC
Hook: Any standard dry fly, sizes 10-20
Thread: Black or to match the body colour
Hackle: Grizzly or to match the body, palmered
Body: Any colour dubbing to match the insect
Wing: Elk hair (may be dyed)
Except for the step of leaving the butts of the wings sticking up and being trimmed short to form a head of sorts, this is a very simple pattern.
Contrast this with the Snowshoe Caddis (ss-Caddis).
ss-Caddis (Troth style) (tied by Sheldon Seale)
Hook: Any standard dry fly, sizes 10-20
Thread: Black or to match the body colour
Body: Any colour dubbing to match the insect
Wing: Snowshoe Rabbit foot hair (may be dyed)
The head of the fly is finished in the same way. Beyond that, the hackle isn’t required because this fly floats very well without it. And, the Snowshoe is much more durable than Elk hair. I have fished the same ss-Caddis all day. It’s faster to tie, too (no hackle and no hair stacking).
Snowshoe is much more readily available than in the past and can be dyed in a number of colours. My essentials are bleached, natural, dun, black, yellow, dark olive and brown with natural and dun being the most commonly used.
Here is a list of patterns where I have substituted Snowshoe for other materials. The recipes are quite repetitive, dubbing and snowshoe with an occasional hackle or some legs thrown in. We’ll see how many we can do at the tying night! The complete patterns for the flies listed below is on its own page.
ss-Caddis (Troth style)
ss-Caddis (Wright style including the ss-Wright’s Royal)
Usual (many variations)
ss-Emerger
ss-Spider
ss-Ant
ss-Beetle
ss-Parachute Dun
ss-Spinner
ss-Shuttlecock
ss-Shipman’s Buzzer
ss-Stimulator
ss-Trude
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