duaneredford.com   "Fear No Water"

Hidy Ho Good Neighbors,

“He ate”, I said. “Really, I never even saw it”, he replied.  Recognizing a fish taking your dry fly is not always the stuff that movies are made of.  Sometimes, it is so subtle that we miss the take. Fish typically don’t eat dries while you’re zoomed into the frame in super slow motion with music playing in the background. It’s typically a game of controlled speed, technique, and yep, luck.

It’s obvious we don’t know what we’re missing while nymphing because stuff is going down sub-surface.   I imagine there are several fish we “miss” and don’t even know they ate. Same holds true for surface fishing, but actually seeing the misses is much easier and certainly more frustrating.  Just last week I had a client set up doing some quarter upstream double dry work.  He was rolling an Elk Hair Caddis 18” ahead of a Yellow Sally.  The fish were gorging on both.  He surmised that for every 10 fish that ate his offerings, he may turn 3, and for every 3 he turned he may solidly hook 1.  And this guy is a good stick, honest too.

Last week, it was easy to tell when a fish ate the dries as most takes were splashy.  That’s the telltale sign fish are eating caddis, stones, or terrestrials.  Not a hard and fast rule, like all in fly fishing, but when you’re seeing aggressive, splashy takes, good bet they’re eating something that skitters, flutters, or bounces on the water.  When you see those easy, simple rises, fish are usually secure, calm, and eating duns, spents, or cripples.  In all cases you need to read the fish, the bugs, as well as the river to dial in the correct offerings.

Let’s talk more about reading fish as they eat dries.  There are basically, 3 types of rises; simple, compound, and complex.  In each case the fish have a staging spot, or a beginning holding area.  In a simple rise, the fish typically simply elevate to the surface, break the surface, and yawn in the bug.  A compound rise is a bit more detailed as the fish, starting in the same staging area, follows the bugs for a short distance before ingesting.  This is a tough rise to consistently hook fish because they are really inspecting your flies, and any wrong move means game over.  The last type of rise is a complex rise.  These fish do the same as a compound except they actually turn downstream and follow your bug downstream.  Usually, if you can maintain your drift, that fish will eat.

The key to dry fly presentation when it comes to how the fish are eating is observation.  Watch how the fish are feeding, where they are staging, and then cast 4 to 5 feet upstream of them. Show the flies only, no fly line allowed.  I see a lot of folks that have a surface feeding fish picked out and either cast way too far upstream, or cast directly on top of the fish.  If you take a nymphing cast approach and cast way upstream, you will have a terrible time keeping your drift as you near the fish strike zone.  Casting on top of the fish that is eating a full 4 feet downstream of where it’s staging causes issues too if you cast 4 feet above where you saw it eat.  I’ll let you digest this for a minute.

Couple things about the dry fly lift.  Not even gonna call it a set.  It’s a lift in the opposite direction that the fish ate.  Fish eats going downstream (complex rise), you lift upstream.  Simple rise upstream of you, you lift up and downstream.  Lift speed is not nearly as critical as lift direction and control, and this is how most fish are missed when dry fly fishing.

That’s enough for now.  Hey, if you don’t already, please like The Fly Fishers Playbook Facebook page.  Only fly fishing, and plenty of it.

Fear No water!

Dry fly fishing in beautiful places….

Size 18 Elk Hair caddis