I recently watched an older gentleman land a beautiful fat 20" rainbow in a Regulated fishing area. He was very skillful in handling the fish with his 9’5X leader but when he showed me the rig he was using it was new to me. He had a #16 wet fly on the tippet but then, attached to the bend of that hook he had tied a extended 15"+/- tippet section to which he had tied a #16 soft hackle. I’ve never heard of this type of setup before. I can see where the effectiveness of the upper fly would be limited but it would certainly avoid tangles and still provide an attractor function. He caught the fish on the soft hackle tip fly. Is this a unique setup ?
not unique, in fact it is fairly common. I have used it with pretty good success.
other variations use a dry fly with a wet or nymph dropper, usually of the same insect species, some use hoppers with a dropper.
Some folks tie the dropper to the eye and yet others attached it to the tippet.
The upper fly can still garner strikes, but if you do tangle a dropper setup it is usually a pretty bad tangle.
Ray,
Take a look at this…
I use a dropper fly from time to time (depending on where I am and whether it is allowed… always check). I will use a copper john and drop a small zebra midge off the hook bend. Or, I will use a zebra as a lead fly with an even smaller mercury off the bend. It is a pretty effective, you just have to be very careful with the cast or you will end up with a mess.
Ray,
I have never used the dropper-off-fly, but, in some states the fishing regs do not consider that “Flyfishing” so it would be illegal in FFO zones.
For example, the regs might define flyfishing as:
FLY FISHING means casting upon water and retrieving in a manner in which the weight of the fly line propels the fly. No more than 3 unbaited artificial flies individually attached to a line may be used. (NOTE: It is unlawful to troll a fly in waters restricted to fly fishing only).
as well as the definition of “Fly”:
Fly means a single-pointed hook dressed with feathers, hair, thread, tinsel, or any similar material to which no additional hook, spinner, spoon or similar device is added.
Now, some may say that the Maine regs above will be ignored by the Wardens. That is not the point, we as flyfishers should want to obey laws, especially those which give us a special franchise (FFO).
JMHO
Hi,
Truck and Trailer rigs are common here. Often, as previously mentioned, a dry with a small nymph attached, but a large heavy nymph with a tiny trailer is used a lot too. My wife often ties a streamer behind a nymph, and she’s caught fish on both the front and back fly.
Personally, I tend to fish a team of wets tied off on individual droppers, but I have used the truck and trailer set up as well.
- Jeff
overmywaders, i think it can be argued that a fly/dropper rig does not violate either of those regs.
Regarding the number of flies, the example dropper rig only used 2 flies which is less than the 3 fly limit. Additionally they were attached to the leader individually, they were not tied in at the same point to form a “treble” type arrangement.
Each fly would pass the definition provided for a fly. It could be argued that the regulation is intended to prevent the use of “stinger” hooks rather than droppers.
Either way if those are the regulations it can’t hurt to contact the state authorities to ask for a clarification
That’s the only way I would tie a dropper.
Crotalus,
You said
overmywaders, i think it can be argued that a fly/dropper rig does not violate either of those regs.
I think so, too. However, having discussed it before on another FF site, I never found a convincing counter-argument.
You said
Additionally they were attached to the leader individually, they were not tied in at the same point to form a “treble” type arrangement.
But, they were not “individually attached to the leader”, the trailing fly (point fly on a regular rig) was attached to the bend of the hook of the lead fly. This is the same as a Stinger outfit, it just depends on how long you make the tippet material between the two flies. But you see, how would they define a Stinger so that they could prevent snagging? Just this way.
Similarly, with the definition of “fly”, they state that you cannot attach an “additional hook”, but that is essentially what is occurring with that rig.
Anyway, I was just offering a “heads up”. It wasn’t that long ago that PA was nabbing people using cork-bodied flies on FFO streams (unless that is an urban legend).
Good fishing.
Actually fishing with multiple flies is a technique that is much older (by a century or two) than the method of fly fishing that we use today. I sometimes use two flies with one tied to the bend of the other. In MN, the regulations allow up to three flies and do not specify how they are attached. Sometimes I catch everything on the trailing fly, sometimes on the first fly and sometimes it’s pretty mixed up. Usually I end up breaking off the trailing fly and then I just fish with one. BTW, in the traditional terminology, the fly at the farthest end of the line was called the point fly and a number of flies were tied onto the leader at intervals above the point fly with stiff tippet so they stuck out at 90 degrees from the leader. Those flies were called the dropper flies. I have read of folks fishing rigs of up to nine flies but I can’t imagine doing that myself. Nowadays, in the US people tend to call the fly at the end of the line the dropper which is contrary to the traditional nomenclature. So in the case of the hopper and dropper, the hopper really is the dropper and it should be called the hopper and point fly. But we really don’t have any confusing or contradictory terminology in fly fishing do we? 
Hi,
In terms of position “names”, the last fly was the point, the first dropper was the “next one up”, the 2nd dropper the 2nd one up, and so forth. But, the “last dropper”, or the one closest to the rod, was called the “bob fly” as I understand it.
At least, I’ve seen it so called in some books usually talking about Loch fishing. However, it could be that the term “bob fly” has some other aspects to in before the top fly becomes a “bob fly”?
- Jeff
flyfshr,
It gets worse. The point fly can also be called the “tail” fly, the fly nearest the angler is usually called the “hand” fly, but is sometimes called the “bobber”, etc…
Can you imagine fishing a “strap” of twelve flies like they did in Great Britain? You needed a wide casting loop to prevent tangles in that!