Dropper fly rigging

[Ray Kunz]

There seems to be two schools of thought on how to rig up dropper flies. The older concept, I think, is that of having a floating fly tied to an extended piece of tippet coming off the side ofthe main leader that carries the sunken fly. A more popular method now is to have an added length of tippet simply tied to the bend of dry fly hook, and tying the sunken fly to it.
With this second rig the dry fly would obviously have two pieces of tippet coming from it that would impair hook ups.
Would anyone care to comment?

[Mike Thomas]

Hi Ray, I almost always fish a dry fly with a nymph underneath and the tippet tied from the bend of the dry. I can honestly say I have not noticed any difference in hook ups compared to a single dry fly, but probably 80% of the fish do take the nymph. Those that take the dry do tend to hook up just the same. The hardest part is when they take the nymph you have to be very quick on the strike, but when they take the dry you have to pause before striking. If I have had most fish on the nymph I do miss a few on the dry by striking too quickly, it takes a couple of missed fish to make me slow down!
All the best.
Mike.

[Denny]

I tie my nymph on the end of my longer than normal tippet.
Go back up the tippet about 2 feet, and tie in an overhand loop about 1 1/2" diameter.
Then stick the loop through the eye of my dry fly, drop the fly through the loop and tighten.
This method does not work well if you are using a small dry fly. eye sometimes is too small. Normally my dry fly is a larger one.
This method makes changing my dry fly easier. I do like to keep things simple when fishing.
The only real problem is when you get a strike on both at the same time. Is fun though.

Works for me
Denny

[JohnScott]

... of tying the tippet to the trailing fly off the bend of the hook of the lead fly.

With very small fish, there is some tendency for them to bump the lead fly away, because of the tippet on both ends of the fly, to my way of thinking, without hooking up. Not that most of those little guys do that, just a noticeable number of them.

With larger fish, I don't see any trend in that regard. And I've never noticed the difference in takes on the nymphs and dries that Mike mentioned. Not saying that it isn't happening - just something that I haven't been aware of, or that I've dealt with without being really conscious of it ??

John

[Normand]

just add a dropper loop to the dry fly

[redietz]

If my top fly is a dry, I usually attach the tippet to the bend of the hook. I don't think it makes much difference in hook-up rates. I might alter this if I'm planning on suspending the top fly over the water, it seems to be a little easier to bounce up and down if it's dangling from the leader.

With two wets (my more usual mode of fishing) I'm of two minds. I don't usually expect too many takes to the top fly; it's there more as an attractor and so that I can see where my flies are than as a fly As Edmonds&Lee pointed out almost a century ago, "It remains only to add, that the taking fly should be fished as point, i.e., the fly farthest from the angler." If that's the case, it doesn't generally matter too much how the upper fly is attached. BUT: I sometimes put the upper fly on as a true dropper, using a tippet ring, because it's easier to change that way, and I sometimes think like you do that having tippet at both ends impairs hook-ups. I was fishing such a rig yesterday, and uncharacteristically, every take was to the top fly. It didn't help hook-ups at all; I missed all but two fish and I attribute it to the fact that the top fly was above the main leader, not dangling from it, so the fish bumped the main leader before getting to the dropper. (All takes were within 15 feet of me and I saw each one clearly.)

If you're fishing a dry as a dropper it will always be above the main leader, so this will always be the case.

So, no, I don't think that the hook bend connection reduces hookups at all; it may even help.