nymphing

[peconic]

Okay, it apears that in order catch trout on a fly rod outside of the summer i am going to have to learn to "Nymph". I am new to flyfishing and just started understanding how to fish dry flies but as most know dry fly fishing hasn't picked up to much just yet.

I was wondering if anyone with tips or "best practices" for nymphing could share them to help me understand. At face value it seems that it is simple- tie on a nymph, add some weight and possibly use an indicator (or not). It does however seem as though there are definately folks who "get it" and those that don't. What are common mistakes that often keep fisherman from catching when others are?

[The Patriot]

Well count me in as one of those who don't get it. :x :oops: :roll: I can tell you what I believe my mistakes are, where I'm having difficulties. I'll let someone who gets it tell you what you SHOULD do...

Weight....I can't seem to find the right amount of weight. I'm either getting snagged, or I'm not in the strike zone.

Indicator.....I can't seem to figure out the correct location for my indicator. It's either sinking or dragging my flies around.

Managing the drift.... I can't seem to control my drift and keep the flies in the water long enough to make a good presentation before I either have to mend, interupting my drift, or recast.

Line control....I either end up with too much line on the water without control, or when I try high sticking I end up dragging my flies.



And just for the record, you don't have to wait until summer to fish dries. Dries are just now beginning to become productive, but you have to be in the right place at the right time.

The right place changes from day to day, you have to get a handle on the progression of the hatch, the rythm of the river, by spending a fair amount of time there. The right time changes with the seasons.

Right now the right place appears to be the TMA or above. The right time is 1pm to 5pm, and once the spinners start to come down, from 5 or 6pm to dark.

Unless the weather gets freaky and the spinners hold off until the following day and come down midmorning, say around 10am, which often happens. :roll:

And just because dry fly fishing becomes productive, it's still important to learn how to fish nymphs. Even in "the summer", the fish don't rise all day or every day, and if you rely solely on dries, you have to fish on their schedule instead of yours. Nymphing is still highly effective in the summer.

Whereas some people, like Housy Dave :roll: , can go out at any time of day, or any time of year, and take fish on nymphs all day, from sun up to sun down, regardless of insect activity, location, season, or time of day.

The only real difference between now and "summer" is that in the summer the evening fishing picks up, and with warmer temps more fish rise more frequently. But dry fly fishing is always limited, and unreliable at best.

If you wait for the fish to meet you half way, you'll spend alot of time driving from pool to pool, looking for bugs and rises, or waiting on the bank, drinking bourbon and smoking cigars, waiting for the hatch. Nothing wrong with that, mind you, many of us have made that our stock and trade, particularly it seems, the older fellows. They are content to wait until the fish show themselves, and then have at 'em. They don't care to do the wading and casting and rigging and re rigging involved in nymphing, and prefer instead to conserve their time and energy, and wait for easier pickings.

In some cases, I think it's a question of personal preference. There are some guys out there who have been doing this for many, many years, have done their share of nymphing, and can do it quite well, but prefer the ease and convenience, not to mention the pleasure of casting a long line with a weightless fly, associated with dry fly fishing. They've done the work, they've put in their time, they've mastered the art of nymphing, but have chosen to fish dries over rising fish. It doesn't take all day. You go out when the hatch is expected and wait for the fish to start to feed and you play chase the fly with them.

And there are those who simply enjoy seeing the take on the surface, as opposed to fishing below by feel or with an indicator.

For some, I think it's a question of available time. Since it is easier to master dry fly fishing, it is more time efficient to go out when the fish are showing and stick a few. It is a time limited event, and doesn't take all day. You go out from 1 to 5, fish the hatch, and go home for dinner. Or, in the summer, you eat dinner, and fish the evening rise from 6 or 7 to dark.

For others, it's laziness. They don't want to do all that work and spend all that time.

And for still others, it's a lack of skill. They've tried nymphing, and found it difficult, unproductive and frustrating, and they now eschew nymphing as being akin to bait fishing. They can't do it, at least not well, and have given up, and dedicated themselves to doing what they can do well.

We all have to decide for ourselves what we want out of our sport. It's all a matter of personal choice. I'm trying very hard to learn to do this, but I'm not doing very well. I'm sticking with it, but I gotta be honest, it's very frustrating. I hope I don't end up in that last category of fly fishermen.

Time to book a lesson with Pat Torrey....

Good Luck....


P.S. Perhaps we should start a support group for frustrated wannabe nymph fishermen..... :wink: :lol: :lol:

[peconic]

In my defense i only got a fly rod last summer and i have been trying to just learn one thing at a time. Since i started last summer i didn't "need" to learn how to nymph since i was able to catch fish right from the begining on drys.

This year my goal was to learn the insects the trout feed on and improve my fly selecting abilities. I understand the importance of "matching the hatch" but i first need to learn how to "identify the hatch". The pictures of all those little bugs are all great however the problem remains that i have not been able to get any of the bugs to pose for me!!!

I did however get me some nymphs and indicators so i guess i should learn how to use it. It has seemed to me that the guys using sinking leaders (i think leaders or the tips of the fly line) apear to have more success. I unfortunetly only have a basic floating line and one spool so for now i just have to work with that.

My biggest issue is since i have spent my whole life fishing mainly for largemouth bass or striped bass nymphing to me feels like fishing "naked" - I can't feel the nymph and I can't feel the strike! I don't know what I am trying to feel. I also don't understand how to select a nymph, with drys i know that i need to look around and figure out which bugs are flying by my head but with nymphs even if i see little bugs in the water on the bank of the river, I have no idea what to use when fishing out in the river.

Well any way, i keep a bunch of cigars in my jeep, and as long as no one minds if i drink scotch instead of burbon, i will be just fine!

[Farmy Joe]

There's a great book you can read to get started out called Nymphing Strategies by Larry Tullis. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/158574266X/sr=1-1/qid=1145798608/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-4966813-5876121?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books Jim, I believe I lent you another book by the same author. If you're interested, I can lend you this one, too.

[The Patriot]

Funny you should mention that, cuz I was at Cubeta's in Middlefield yesterday on my way home from work, and I was looking at that book thinking very seriously about buying it. It seems to have alot of remedial material on bugs and fish and reading water, but I skipped to the meat and potatoes about indicator nymphing and frankly, while I agree it's a great book with good info, it doesn't say anything I haven't read before, or am not TRYING to do. :roll: Operative word, TRYING....

After reading that section, I think my problem is in drift and line management. I think I may be allowing too much slack between my rod and my indicator, and like you told me the other day, I am losing contact with my flies. I am so focused on trying to achieve a perfect drag free drift and fishing a slack line, that I am not controlling the speed of the flies, and I'm getting snagged on the bottom. And like you and Dave also told me, and I have read, the flies have to be moving just slower than the current and indicator.

Hopefully I'll be getting out again Monday and/or Tuesday and try a few adjustments. I'll experiment with a few things and see if I can't make some improvements.

If you already have that book, I'd love to borrow it. Next time I see you, I'll give you back the other one and borrow the nymphing book.

Many thanks!

Jim

[Farmy Joe]

V.G.! :wink:

[Z Fisher]

There are others who are far better at nymphing than I but here are my tips. Mind you, I'm still working on being a good nymph fisherman.

- strike indicator location: I put it on at two times the depth of the water. This is a bit more than most people recommend, but I find I often under estimate how deep the water is. The key is to have enough leader to allow your nymph to get to the bottom. To illustrate this, put on a big bright nymph that you can see underwater -- a big ***** Creek should do it -- and watch it drift past you. I'm guessing you'll see that you're no where near the bottom. Set your strike indicator and then move it up some more. Someone once said, "you're not catching fish if you're not catching the bottom once in a while". Lost flies are part of the nymphing experience.

- dead drift: A good drift is just as important underwater as it is above water. When I pay a lot of attention to my drift, I get more strikes. Many times, I'll do an upstream mend as soon as my line hits the water and often again during the drift. Just remember that every time you mend you're pulling the fly off the bottom so don't get too crazy about mending. That being said, focus on the drift. Again, drag free drifts are just as important subsurface as they are on the surface. My style is to follow the strike indicator with my rod tip raised a few feet off the surface and to lower the rod tip as the fly swings below me. More on the swing below.

- the swing: Now that you're focused on the drag free drifts, know that sometimes a little drag is a good way to imitate a nymph struggling to the surface during a hatch. In order to imitate this, let your flies drift until they're hanging downstream of you. As they swing, they'll rise to the surface. Let them hang there for 30 seconds or so. Last Friday I got a 15" Brown Trout on the swing.

- dropper: 95% of the trout I catch while nymphing are on a small dropper fly attached to a larger nymph. The rig I usually string up is a bead head something or other (GR Hare's Ear, Prince, etc) with a small fly attached to the bend in the hook. The dropper is tied to a 12 inch piece of tippet and that tippet is tied to the bend of the larger bead head fly. I think the notion is that the larger fly acts as an attractor, the trout can easily see that this larger thing is not quite real, and then the smaller thing comes along that looks good and the trout takes it. Typical droppers that I fish are #18+ prince, pheasant tail and hare's ear, though last week I had luck fishing a #18 bead head Lightning Bug as the dropper (cause my buddy was catching fish on this same rig)

- setting the hook: when you first start nymphing, set the hook by raising the rod tip a foot or so every time you see the indicator do even the slightest little jig. With time you'll realize what little jigs are takes and what little jigs are not. Of course, it's more art than science as sometimes those slight little jigs are takes and you'll miss them. I guess my advice is to be overly "twitchy" at the beginning so that you can learn what a "take" looks like. Of course, every time you raise the rod tip the fly comes off the bottom so finding the right balance is key.

That's my brain dump for now. I hope this helps.

-Z

[Richard W. Fleet]

That's some great advice Z Fisher!!! The more I visit the site the more I'm learning. Thanks

[The Patriot]

Awesome Z, Thank You!!