Working flies

[John Dunn]

Mike had a wonderful artificial on fly manipulation. My question is ,do you use a certian technique
that you personalty use, that you would like to share. The method that I use is the down and across ,with frequent mends but has something to be desired. I have so many questions about sinking lines or sinking tips? presentation . I fish in a catch and release stream with some well educated brown trout and I have not been able to find the winning technique.

Thanks for sharing

John

[kanutripr]

My very favourite method is slightly upstream and then high stick and let the fly drift into the area where the fish are. As the fly drifts through I allow the rod to lower and follow the fly. Done right this will let the fly go really deep. I have the amount of line I want to use already out so that when the fly gets to the end of the run I can just gently lift the rod while the fly swings to imitate an emerger. Of course this involves a long rod and you to be placed properly and is not always feasible. I like to place myself in a position where the fast water is between me and the seam I am fishing (to mask my presence) and use the length of the rod to hold the line out of the faster water. I don't steelhead fish but from the ones I've seen I think a lot of steelheaders fish this way. I have found this to work really well for heavily pressured fish but does rely partially on your wading skills. I don't mind the extra work wading into position. A really nice heavily pressured fish in tough waters is always a huge reward!

Vicki

[Soft-hackle]

Hi John,
I use a modified Leisenring lift-Brook's method coupled with another technique I learned years ago. I cast upstream far enough to let the fly sink to the desired depth. I often mend the line. As the fly drifts downstream, you follow it with the rod. When it reaches the spot I think where the fish is, I stop the progress of the rod, raise the rod as the fly swings, take in line using the hand-twist retrieve and rock the rod gently, as if you had palsy. This raising and imparted rocking adds a sort of jerky action to the fly as it rises and swims across. If you do not take fish using this, something is wrong. Try it and see.

The rocking action was suggested in a book called Taking Larger Trout by Larry Koller. It was published about 1950 and rivaled Ray Bergman's Trout. Larry-also a magazine writer of some notoriety- liked fishing wets, and I picked this rocking motion up from him. It adds "animation" to your swimming fly. You can find Larry's book, often, in the stacks of a good library. For fly fishers of the wet fly, it's a very good read. Larry also wrote a great book on hunting Whitetail Deer called Shots At Whitetails.

Mark

[John Dunn]

Thanks for the replies. Mark I have that book by Lawrence R Koller and some how I missed that information in the book ,I will reread and see if I can dig information out of book.I think you talked about the book on another web site so I orders a copy used. I have done well with my tying sense we last talked about patterns, but my catching has been below par,maybe this post will help.Maybe we will get some more methods, there some good fishermen on this board,nardog where are you.

Best
John

[narcodog]

Lately I have just been using he Tenkara rod and by, who knows, accident I cast upstream as Mark mentioned let the fly drift to the proper depth and then started to work the fly to the surface. I suppose it is like a Leisenring lift but I really made that fly dance in the water column. Ban, bag, bang one fish after another. The other folks that were with me, zero fish. Dead drift did not bring any fish but when that fly danced wowwee. I usually just did a dead drift with a little action as the fly reached the end of the drift which would bring strikes but not like I have recently.

This turned out not to be a fluke as I did it on the same stream a week apart and then on another. Another thing was that i had to get down deep to where the fish were.

I have all of these books, watched others fish and for what ever reason I never imparted as much action to the fly as I have before.

[Soft-hackle]

John,
I hope my memory serves me well regarding that rocking technique. If I'm not mistaken, Larry tells of an older gentlemen he meets along a river who is catching fish while he is catching few. He notices the old man has a shaking of the limbs-and he begins doing this on purpose and begins catching fish. It's been a while since I've had the book in hand. Perhaps I should order a copy for my library.

Mark

[willowhead]

i use to high stick a lot of nymphs.....it was fun.....start up stream.....high stick til the fly was right in front of you.....then gradually drop the tip as the the fly swung by.....but you can only do that so long.....two/three hours tops, before it gets pretty boring, even if your catching a good number of fish.
i'd rather swing a fly.....in a sense "quartering" either down and across or up and across.....then strip back. works with streamers, flymphs, soft hackles, even Caddis pupa.
my favorite is dry fly fishing and emergers.....but sometimes fish will simply not come up. and streamers can be a ton-o-fun anyway.....they just smash the heck outta the things. land-locked Salmon are a blast that way.....Lake George and Lake Champlain and others in N.Y., and Vermont are great places to go in the fall when they run up the tribs. to spawn. just make sure you let 'em go so they can do their thing.

[Ron Eagle Elk]

I fish my flymphs and soft hackles about the same as Mark (Soft Hackle). Upstream and high stick it until the fly comes even with you, mending as needed, then lower the rod and let the fly swing naturally. During the entire drift I keep the rod tip pointed at the fly. If I am targeting a specific fish or lie, I'll start to lift the rod just before the fly is in front of the fish or lie, letting the fly start to rise.

Seems to be a pretty productive method.

REE

[willowhead]

It's a VERY productive method REE of couse.....you can have 100 fish day here sometimes doin' just that. i just get bored with it after 10/20 fish.....i gotta admit.....to looking forward to the possibility of one big fish, more than 20 little ones. And there's just something bout Swingin' a streamer (big meal=big fish) that excites me. You prolly have many more opprotunities than we do here, at catching more wild fish.....specially Trout.....i'm glad for you. The local rivers here have an incredable bio-mass (10K fish per river mile).....but it's at least 80% stocked fish. Although they weren't all stocked yesterday. There are stocked fish that have been in the rivers as long as 8 years i'm told, and the one thing that really makes it exciting, is that you just never know what you'll hook into on any given cast, unless your "clearly" sight fishing. Can be an 8 inch wild Brookie. A stocked Bow of 12 inches or any size on up, a 20 inch Cutt, or a 3 ft. long Brown.....litterally. Night fishin' especially.....bring BIG flies.....REAL BIG. When the lakes behind the dams turn over and they have Shad kills through the turbins.....you need an 8 wt. to Trout fish.

[John Dunn]

I can"t even dream of 100 fish a day, if you ever want to come back down to Earth,come fish with me. Thanks for the advice ,maybe I can do better next year.



Best
John