My best fishing friend, who is a superb angler, showed me his technique of fishing these types of flies a number of years ago. I'm sure it originated with the extensive Atlantic salmon and steelhead fishing he has done over many years. Using a weight forward floating line, he casts a single fly across or slightly downstream, and imparts a bit of up and down "bobbing" motion to it with his rod tip as it floats along down the river on a tight line, until it is directly below him. Then he either gives the fly a few short tugs, or does several hand twist retrieves, before lifting the fly and recasting.

While that part of his technique is not particularly unique, the fly sizes that he uses are not the norm. He'll often be on the Yellowstone River using a size #6 or perhaps a #8 bead head fly, hooking and landing some impressive sized trout, including a 28" brown a couple years ago.