NCYWG

Wet Fly Presentation - PART I

Anglers casting a wet fly face many of the same challenges that they encounter when fishing with a dry fly.  As with dries, a drag-free drift is essential most of the time (there are exceptions, of course), and it's important not to spook the fish.  However, wet-fly anglers face the additional challenge of achieving the right depth.

What is the right depth?  That depends on whether the fish are "looking up," which means they expect to find food on the surface or in the upper part of the water column, or "looking down," which is when they expect their next meal to drift along near the bottom.

When they're looking up, a dry fly, emerger, or pupa pattern is usually the right choice;  that situation is covered in the article on dry fly presentations.

When they're looking down, a nymph dead-drifted near the bottom is generally the right tactic.  This two part article describes two ways to do that:

A deep nymph with an indicator and a deep nymph on a tight line.

Sometimes fish expect their food to be in the middle of the water column, as when a nymph or pupa is rising from the bottom to the surface.  This situation calls for the "rising nymph" presentation.

And there are times when you need to imitate a swimming insect or baitfish.  A wet fly swing, either near the surface or deep, is the right response.

These six presentations are described in the second part of this article.  But before delving into the details of deep nymphing, we need to look at some of the ways to get our nymph down near the river bottom.

How to Get It Down

During non-hatch times (and sometimes even during a hatch), nymphs should be presented near the bottom - usually within 25cm.  Just a few centimetres in depth can make all the difference to your fishing.  Here are some ways to get your fly down where it belongs.

• Weight on the leader.  This can be a split shot, a "Twist On," or mouldable weight.  Add the weight 30-45 cm from the fly.
  Unfortunately, weight on the leader will make your rig difficult to cast.  It's very easy to get the leader hopelessly tangled around the weight.  Also, accuracy and distance are sacrificed.  For easier casting, open up your casting loop when tossing a weighted rig.  Also, slow down the casting stroke and make sure the back cast has time to straighten out behind you.  And do as little false casting as possible.
  The longer and thinner your weight, the easier it is to cast, which is one of the advantages of mouldable weight;  you can squeeze it around the leader in a ball, then roll it out so it's long and thin.  Many fly shops sell handy dispensers with several sizes of shot.  For all products, there are good, environmentally friendly alternatives to using lead.
   
• Use a weighted fly.  Buy or tie flies with weight under the dubbing, or with a bead head.  (Basically, a bead head is a split shot on the fly instead of on the leader).  A bead head makes it easier for a small fly to not get "fat" and out of proportion due to weight under the dubbing.  Bead heads avoid many of the casting problems that are created by putting a weight on the leader.
   
• Use a two fly rig.  With very small nymphs, such as the size 18 or 20 nymphs that imitate blue-winged olives, you can't put enough weight on the fly to make it sink quickly in moderate to fast current.  A solution is to use a very heavy fly, such as a heavily-weighted stonefly nymph, in combination with the small fly.
  One way to do this is to tie a blood knot in the tippet, but leave one of the tag ends extra long.  Then tie the small nymph to this tag end and the heavy fly to the tippet end.  The tag end should be 5-8cm long after the small fly is tied on.
  Another way to put together a two-fly rig is to tie the heavy fly to the end of the tippet.  Then clinch knot a 30-45cm length of tippet material to the bend of the hook.  Tie the small fly to the other end.  (The "New Zealand" rig)
  One advantage of a two-fly rig is that you present two different patterns to the fish.  A disadvantage is that when the rig is irretrievably hung up on a submerged rock, you will lose twice as many flies.
   
• Use a thinner leader.  Drag is proportionate to the thickness of the leader.  So using thinner leader creates less drag, which lets the fly sink faster.
   
• Pile line.  After your fly hits the water, throw in a quick mini-cast or two so slack line piles on top of the water at the point where the fly went in.  This reduces drag and lets the fly sink faster.
   

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Wet Fly Presentation - PART II

This is the second part of a two-part article on basic wet fly tactics.  The first part described ways to get your fly down deep.  In this part, five wet fly presentations are described.

• Deep nymph with an Indicator
  Put a strike indicator on your leader 1.5-2 metres from the fly.  Cast upstream.  Ideally, the fly and indicator should be in a straight line, parallel with the current;  mend line if necessary.  Treat the indicator like a dry fly, and attempt to give it a drag-free drift.
  As soon as the indicator sinks, jerks, moves sideways, or does anything that looks unnatural, swing your rod downstream.
  Swing it hard, maybe even hauling in line with your free hand.  With this presentation there is always more slack than you realize, so you need to move a lot of line to set the hook.
  Cast several times to cover the breadth of reachable water in front of you.  Then take two or three steps upstream and start again.  It can take many casts to cover the water effectively.
  10 metres is about as far as you should cast with this set-up.  Beyond that distance it's difficult to detect the subtle motions of the indicator that show a strike, and it's even harder to pull in enough slack line to set the hook.
  A very heavy fly such as a stonefly nymph can easily sink your indicator if the water is deep or slow.  If this happens move the indicator up the leader, lengthening the leader if necessary.  If the indicator continues to sink, you need a bigger indicator.  It's possible to have too big an indicator, however.  If it's too big, you won't be able to tell when a fish takes the fly.
  Strike indicators take many forms.  You can tie a few cm's of polypropylene yarn into the leader and dress the yarn with floatant.  Alternatively, fly shops sell ready-made indicators.  Some types twist onto the leader, some are little patches of sticky foam that are wrapped around the leader, and some are bright-coloured styrofoam balls with a hole through which the leader passes (the indicator is held in place with a toothpick).  A variation on this latter indicator is to use a "corky", a common accessory for drift anglers.
  Anglers develop personal preferences for each type of indicator, so it's best to experiment and see what best fits your fishing style.
   
• Deep Nymph on a Tight Line
  Cast upstream with a short line - around 4.5 metres, including leader, past the rod tip.  As soon as the fly hits the water, mend line so all the line and leader is upstream from the fly.  As the fly comes back to you, keep a tight line by lifting the rod.
  Lower the rod as the fly passes you.  Watch the line where it moves through the water.  If it hesitates or stops, lift the rod enough to set the hook-you won't need to move it much because you have a tight line.
  Cast several times to cover the breadth of reachable water in front of you.  Then take two or three steps upstream and start again.
  Note:  With this tactic, knowing when to strike is an intuition that is developed only with practice.  For this reason, tight-line nymphing is more difficult than fishing with an indicator.  That's why some anglers regard it as "more cool."  They might catch fewer fish, but they feel smugger about it!
   
• Rising Nymph
  Cast upstream and allow the fly to sink, which will take longer than you think.  Control slack line by gathering it back to you as the fly drifts downstream.  When you think you're on the bottom and near a fish, lift the rod slowly to bring the fly to the surface.  This tactic is most useful when you know, or strongly suspect, where a fish is laying.  It is not a good searching tactic.
  Another method of presenting a rising nymph requires a small indicator and a floating line.  The distance between the fly and the indicator should be approximately the depth of the water.  Cast downstream at an angle to the current.  Mend line downstream so there is a slight bow in the fly line.  This creates drag (normally a no-no) and the indicator will start to move across the current.  The result is that the fly rises.  This tactic works best in slow flows.
   
• Wet Fly Swing Near the Surface
  Cast straight across stream in slow water, or at more of an angle (up to 60 degrees) in faster water.  Mend upstream or downstream so that the fly moves across the river at about the same speed it moves down the river.  Let the fly swing until it is directly below you, then let it hang there for a few seconds before casting again.
  Throughout your fly's drift, watch the water in the vicinity of the fly.  You are looking for a bulge in the water, a dorsal fin or a tail that breaks the surface.  Don't strike!  Fish will usually hook themselves.  When this happens, swing the rod towards the bank.  This helps to pull the hook into the corner of the fish's jaw, which is a more secure place to hook a fish.
  To cover the water, cast a short line first, and lengthen each cast by two or three feet.  When you reach the limit of your casting, take a step or two downstream and cast again with the same length of line.  This presentation works well with Soft Hackle flies, sculpin and baitfish patterns, and several types of swimming or egg-laying mayflies.
   
• Deep Wet Fly Swing
  This presentation is useful when you're fishing to large, predatory fish that are lying under an undercut bank, as big fish, especially Largemouth Yellows and Bass are fond of doing.
  If the normal wet fly swing isn't getting deep enough, switch to a sink-tip line and a heavily-weighted fly.  Cast upstream of the suspected lie and let the fly swing across.  Slack line needs to be carefully managed:  you need to keep contact with the fly, but you also need to feed just enough line so the fly will sink and drift into the hole.
   
• Shallow Nymph
  During a hatch, emerging nymphs and pupae often drift only a few centimetres underwater.  Sometimes they may be only a few millimetres below the surface.  In these situations the tactics are virtually identical to those for presenting a dry fly.
  Unlike dry fly fishing, however, your offering is usually not visible to you.  Therefore it can be dragging unnaturally without you knowing it.  Also, subtle takes can be difficult to detect.
  For these reasons many anglers use a small indicator.  They treat the indicator like a dry fly, mending line when it looks like it might drag and striking when it disappears.  A disadvantage of this approach is that the indicator creates some splash and fuss when it lands, so it can spook wary fish.  It's also close to the fly, and that can make fish suspicious, too.
  Other anglers simply replace the indicator with a dry fly.  They tie the dry to the tippet, then clinch-knot 45-60cm of leader to the dry's hook bend.  The nymph goes at the end of this short leader.  The dry fly acts as an indictor, and there might be a fish that prefers the dry.  A common late-summer tactic is the "hopper-dropper" combination:  a grasshopper pattern with a small nymph as a trailer.  The disadvantages of any two-fly combination, however, are that the two flies may be in different currents, which will make neither fly drift naturally.  One dragging fly is bad enough, but two draggers is the pits!
  
  So if you really want to feel cool you can just cast your shallow wet fly without any surface accoutrements.  Watch the area near the fly, especially the line/leader junction.  Tighten up on anything that looks like a take - a swirl or bulge near the fly, a slight movement of the line, a dorsal fin that breaks the surface.  It will be very difficult to detect drag.

Article & Images courtesy of Scott Richmond