Again a fascinating person met at the Fly Fishing Show last Saturday is Kathy Kyle who makes Jewelry Created by the Caddisfly. Now, I have heard of jewelry made out of rose petals, and even dung, but this is my first exposure to caddifly cases. The Great Autumn Brown Sedges (Genus Pycnopsyche) is a caddisfly that lives in relatively slow waters. The eggs hatch in the fall just in time for the abundant leaf fall which is their primary source of food. The larvae eat these leaves through the winter and the spring. In early summer the larvae build cases out of minute grains of sand and or even sticks. When the caddisflies are done with the cases, they fly away leaving the cases behind. These abandoned cases are made into jewelry by Kathy.
Kathy however, does not walk the streams looking for the cases, she is smarter than that. She farms the caddisflies and provides them with brightly colored substrates from which to build the colorful cases. After the cases are abandoned, she fills them with epoxy and creates beautiful jewelry. Truly unique!
To learn more about the Great Autumn Brown Sedges and to purchase flies created to be exact imitations of the actual caddisfly go to Trotprostore store.
