Dry vs. Nymph

[garb72]

I am new to all of this... and ive herd that their are dry guys, wet guys, and nymph guys. well i keep more dries than nymphs, i learned with dry flys and got comfortable with them. I just dont wanna be limited to one type. but when i try nymphs i am so lost. i hardly get fish and its hard to tell if i am even getting a bite.... can anyone tell me anything about it? when to use them and how to use them? thanks guys i need all i can get.

[rainbowchaser]

Hi garb72 have you discovered this yet: http://www.flyanglersonline.com/begin/101/ ? Lots of answers here

[Shane Cavitt]

I would suggest getting a good guide to teach you about nymphing. I was in the same boat as you. I had read a bunch about nymphing, but when I actually got on the water it was total chaos. I got so frustrated that I even considered giving up fly fishing. I once heard Dave Whitlock state that he thought getting good instruction was worth more than any equipment you could buy. So I decided to find a guide with the goal of learning. I outlined my goals to the guide and he has taught me quite a bit. I have since nymphed on my own and been successful. My confidence level is much higher than it was and now I expect to catch fish instead of just hoping. I still have a ton to learn, but learning from someone experienced helped get me over that initial hump.

[Bluegill222]

As far as bite detection goes, have you tried fishing your nymph below some sort of indicator? Not only does it make it easier to detect bites, but it makes it easier to tell how well your nymph is drifting and helps control depth. Also, rainbowchaser pointed you to a great spot to find a lot of your answers. My best advise? Have patience and a sense of humor with yourself. If you can laugh instead of curse, the learning process is more fun and goes a LOT faster.

BTW welcome aboard!

[sagefisher]

garb72,

I would imagine it took you a while to get the hang of fishing dry flies, casting, presentation, drag free drifts, accuracy, etc.

The same can be said for nymph fishing. Just give it time to get used to it. I also learned to fly fish on the dry. It wasn't until much later that I was introduced to the various styles of nymph fishing. What that did was open up huge alternative style of fly fishing that increased my chances of catching fish.

If the trout are surfacing for dries, I fish that way immediately. However, most of the time fish are feeding subsurface, either wet (I love soft hackles and woolly buggers for that) or they are feeding on nymphs (which is the vast majority of the time).

Nymph fishing in lakes is different than nymph fishing in rivers or streams. So, depending upon which waters you fish the most (lakes or moving water), try to learn the way methods that work best.

In lakes you will sometimes nymph below an indicator and the nymph may be either just off the bottom or at some level between there and just below the surface depending upon where the fish are feeding. Other times you may nymph with a sink tip line of some type and not use a strike indicator. Then there are those time you may drop a nymph 18 inches to 2 feet off a dry.

In moving water, like rivers, you will often fish in the same manner as above except you will be fishing in a very small window or area. In a lake you can keep your nymph in the water for hours if you want to. In a river you will usually keep it in for only a few seconds, unless you are in a drift boat and the rower keeps the boat going at the same speed as your indicator.

In a river, either fishing from shore or from an anchored boat or you fly is in water that is moving at a totally different speed than you are, your main goal is to keep the nymph drag free especially once the nymph gets down to the bottom. That is where your nymph has to be if you are truly nymphing. Fish feed on the bottom a lot. Your nymph has to be right on the bottom and drag free. When you make a cast upstream it takes a while for the nymph to reach the bottom, it will go drag free for a short distance if you have mended your line properly, then it will succumb to the power of the water and start to have drag and at the same time start an upswing movement. The actual distance your fly is on the bottom is at best a short 10 foot or so and mainly right in front of you. So, work your fly slowly out from you and slowly up or down the river keeping in mind the short distance you are actually covering on each cast.

You can also nymph down on the bottom without using a strike indicator but that takes a lot of learning to get that technique down pat. Then there are times when you will use a dry and a nymph as a dropper. But to me, that is not really nymphing, it is actually fishing the nymph as a emerger, a nymph coming up to the surface to hatch. That can be a very deadly way of fishing at times.

As indicated in other responses to you, it would be best to get a guide who knows nymphing and learn from him. Also, if you join a fly club, you will surely run into some good nymphers who can show you the ropes.

Larry ---sagefisher---

[garb72]

As far as bite detection goes, have you tried fishing your nymph below some sort of indicator? Not only does it make it easier to detect bites, but it makes it easier to tell how well your nymph is drifting and helps control depth. Also, rainbowchaser pointed you to a great spot to find a lot of your answers. My best advise? Have patience and a sense of humor with yourself. If you can laugh instead of curse, the learning process is more fun and goes a LOT faster.

BTW welcome aboard!

I have and use ths palsa pinch-on foam indicators, and i have patience to spare but i just feel lost and confused lol

[kengore]

I also started with dry fly fishingamd felt the most comfortable with it. There is a lot to like about top water fishing, nothing compares to the thrill of watching a trout rise to slurp yur fly off the surface. Unfortunatly dry flys won't work in all conditons and on all rivers, so it became clear that I needed to learn the nymphing techniques.

At first I never seemed to catch fish when nymping. There are a lot more variables in nymphing. Dry fly fishing is a 2D challenge, you can see the fly and all you need to do is get a good drift in a likely spot. Fishing below the surface is a 3D puzzle with the added challenge that you often can't see the bug. This adds a lot more variables that need to be dialed in before it works. However, once you get the right combination it can be far more productive than top water fishing.

I was fortunate to have a friend with nymphing experience that could coach me through my first successful nymping. Here are some of the tips I picked up..

1. Water Depth, the single most important factor is getting the fly into the correct part of the water column where the fish are feeding. Most of the time this means getting the fly right on the bottom. To do this you will need to add weight and length to your rig. How much depends on current and the water depth. Learning to cast a weighted rig takes practice. Usually the tippet needs to be 1 1/2X to 2X the water depth to reach the bottom, for exaple in 1 ft of wagter I want 1 1/2 to 2 feet of tippet between my strike indicator (or big bushy dry fly) and the split shot, then another 8-12 inches to my nymph. I want to adjust the length until I feel the spilt shot bouncing along the bottom. Keep making it longer until you start snagging weeds then shorten it up about 6"

2. Drift, since you can't see you fly it's a lot harder to know if you are getting a drag free drift. Keep in mind that it takes time for the weighted nymph to get down to the target area and adjust your drift time accordingly. If the nymph sinks at 6" per second you need a 4 second drift to get to the bottom of a 2' deep run. So I cast up stream and count to 4 while the fly floats down, only after the 4 count am I fishing effectively. I might need to place my cast 10' or more feet upstream of the target area to have the nymph get to depth in time. You need much longer drifts to be effective, so use lots of mends to adjust the fly line and keep the strike indicator in the water as long as possible. Casting too often means your fly never gets very deep.

3. Don't worry so much about matching the hatch. Fish aren't as picky about underwater food as they are about surface stuff. Choose a nice buggy generic fly pattern like a gold ribbed hairs ear ro a pheasent tail nymph. Size matters some so pick something that would be common on you local waters. It's more effective to get the depth and drift correct than to have a perfect matching bug.

4. Work the water in a deliberate pattern. I like to locate a likely holding spot and start with an upstream cast close to my side of the current. After 2-3 casts I strip out another ft of line and repeat the drift 12' further out. I repeat the proccess untill I have covered the entire run in a series of overlapping stripes. Then I wade a few feet up stream and repeat the proccess. Once you have located a pod of fish you can often pull a half dozen out of the same location.

5. You don't need 30' casts to nymph effectively. Short casts are much easier to manage and you can catch a surprising amount of fish within 10' of your rod tip if you wade with some stealth.

[garb72]

Hi garb72 have you discovered this yet: http://www.flyanglersonline.com/begin/101/ ? Lots of answers here

not yet but i am headed their next! thanks.