New Fly Fishing Technique

Ok, I've been fly fishing for about 8 years now, and as a faithful follower of this site, I know there is rarely anything truly new in fly fishing. So I should say a technique that I have never seen, heard or read about. I call it CCRR.
It started on a small North Idaho stream with an evening caddis egg laying session. I learned patience and frustration while failing to catch any fish. Fluttering bugs in the small, clear water and picky fish. Then in late September I came upon this spot just before dark:
http://home.earthlink.net/%7Epics4me/snag2.jpg

You can see the tip of a root sticking out of the water. In the seam down from it, a large cutthroat was sipping regularly. Of course I worked long and hard for him. I got him to nose up to several flies, but between the tough lie and his experienced eye, I was losing the battle. Then the evening caddis dance started and I figured I was sunk. But I gamely put a CDC and Elk back on and a soft hackle off the bend.
This time in my effort to drop the fly just behind the snag, I caught the soft hackle dropper on the snag. Now I was really done. So I flipped my rod tip up and down trying to free the fly. This made the CDC and Elk flutter like crazy. That sly old fish came flying out of the water, taking the CDC and Elk 8 inches off the water. His momentum freed the soft hackle. After landing a beautiful 17 inch fish, I thought how lucky I was.
Catch a snag, Catch a fish, Release a fly, Release a fish. CCRR. A new technique for difficult fish.
Feel free to use this when the situation occurs.
Rex

Boy, that sounds great! Could ya go back with a video camera and do it again and get it on film for us. We would be really grateful. :)

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Originally Posted by Rex S

Ok, I've been fly fishing for about 8 years now, and as a faithful follower of this site, I know there is rarely anything truly new in fly fishing. So I should say a technique that I have never seen, heard or read about. I call it CCRR.
It started on a small North Idaho stream with an evening caddis egg laying session. I learned patience and frustration while failing to catch any fish. Fluttering bugs in the small, clear water and picky fish. Then in late September I came upon this spot just before dark:
http://home.earthlink.net/%7Epics4me/snag2.jpg

You can see the tip of a root sticking out of the water. In the seam down from it, a large cutthroat was sipping regularly. Of course I worked long and hard for him. I got him to nose up to several flies, but between the tough lie and his experienced eye, I was losing the battle. Then the evening caddis dance started and I figured I was sunk. But I gamely put a CDC and Elk back on and a soft hackle off the bend.
This time in my effort to drop the fly just behind the snag, I caught the soft hackle dropper on the snag. Now I was really done. So I flipped my rod tip up and down trying to free the fly. This made the CDC and Elk flutter like crazy. That sly old fish came flying out of the water, taking the CDC and Elk 8 inches off the water. His momentum freed the soft hackle. After landing a beautiful 17 inch fish, I thought how lucky I was.
Catch a snag, Catch a fish, Release a fly, Release a fish. CCRR. A new technique for difficult fish.
Feel free to use this when the situation occurs.
Rex

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That sure sounds like a new one to me, I will use it and call it the Rex self dapper...

Thanks for sharing I won't tell a soul....

Back in Pa. there is a very heavy white fly hatch on the Yellow Breeches. These mayflies have a tendancy to fly just inches above the surface and the fish will literally jump out to catch them in mid flight. Occasionally the fish would key in on the airborn bugs and all but leave our dries alone.

One evening I had an idea. I dug out a deer hair mouse and tied it to my cut back leader. Then, about 18 inches up from the mouse I tied a dropper with a white fly. With the mouse acting as an acnhor I could pull my line tight and actually suspend my dry a couple inches off the water. Well, you can imagine the looks I was getting, the Breeches gets very crowded during the white flies.

Believe it or not, this system worked. I caught two medium sized fish pretty quickly, then got a massive tangle as total darkness crept in. I never did fish that rig again.

Rex -

Great story !! Can't imagine that I'll have occasion to try this technique, but you never know.

Makes me wonder. Now that some people are using balloons for strike indicators ( that is not real nymphing for sure, right, JC ? ), maybe using a small helium filled balloon to suspend a fly over the water would produce some interesting results.

Let's see, an 00 wt with a two strand furled leader and an 8X tippet.

Hey, Flybinder - how big a balloon would it take to float a size 16 EHC "above the drift" ??

John

In freezing weather,(32 to 0 degrees Fahrenheit), you'll need one of at least 6" diameter.
That size will keep your fly, including 21" of 5x leader material,5.8 inches above the water surface.
At 50 degrees, the balloon's diameter can be reduced down to 2.79 inches.

Great story. I caught a slow double that way a couple of years ago. A fairly small brown gabbed the dropper and started cutting across the tiny spring creek I was fishing. The elkhair caddis I was using as the dry fly zipped along the surface as the trout ran. A substantially larger brown made 3 different grabs for the EHC before he finally got himself hooked. I released the bigger brown very carefully because those are genes I like to see in the pool - enthusiastic and not very bright.

David

I have heard that two anglers opposite sides of the river can cast to the middle and manage to snag each other's line or hook. Then with co-ordinated tension bounce the flies off the water between them, thus dapping in an area they cannot otherwise reach.

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Originally Posted by Greg H

I have heard that two anglers opposite sides of the river can cast to the middle and manage to snag each other's line or hook. Then with co-ordinated tension bounce the flies off the water between them, thus dapping in an area they cannot otherwise reach.

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Ed Zern wrote about doing this many years ago.

I've found that it works much better if you carefully tie your 2 lines together with your fly or flies dangling a foot or two below the knot. With a bit of coordination and practice, there are a number of fishing methods that you can use successfully with this technique, in addition to dapping. Dries, nymphs and streamers all work when fished this way. It's important that both anglers agree beforehand, though, who gets to land the first fish, who gets the second, etc.

Other than myself and my best friend, I rarely see two other anglers fishing this way today. It brings back many fond memories of some hugh fish. Thanks for bringing it up.