The thread on Czech nymphing got me to thinking ( about time something did ! ). I have a lot better success ‘tight line’ nymphing than I do trying to use an indicator. Is it just me ? Am I doing something wrong with the indicators ? Am I acidently doing something right without the indicator ? Anybody else notice this ? Is my hand/eye coordination that bad ?
51,
Using indicators is just a different skill than not using them.
Thing like how deep to set them, how they behave on the water, what a strike looks like, and casting them so that the flies are where you want them all take some practice.
Most of the best indicator fishermen will be constantly adjusting the depth to meet the current (pun intended) conditions. Things constantly change on a river, especially since few of us stand in one place and fish the same stretch of water all day.
Different indicators will behave differently on the water. Learning to read what your indicator is telling you is teh first big step in really getting it as far as indicator fishing goes. If you really get into it, you will find that using different ones for different waters and conditions might appeal to you. Many of us settle on the one style we are comfortable with and then learn to read it under the conditions we fish.
It would be wonderful if all you needed to see to know you had a strike was the indicator completely submerging itself and heading off in the direction the fish is towing it. Unfortunitly, it’s seldom that obvious. Learning to tell all the little hesitations, bobbles, and movements that telegraph light strikes takes attention and experience.
Casting with an indicator takes some experience. Not getting it out there, that’s just a slight adjustment anyone can make. But knowing how the indicator effects where your flies are in relation to where the indicator landed is something you learn only from doing it.
I did some fishing with a guide friend of mine this past summer. He usually works full time for a resort and guides their clients five days a week. The resort was closed this past summer due to the economy, so he made less money but had some free time to fish.
We were in my boat on large lake fishing streamers for trout.
He remarked that he was really enjoying it. The fishing was slow, but he was enjoying the chance to look around and see the scenery.
He’s an expert indicator fisherman. When he’s fishing an indicator, he’s so focused on it he seldom notices what’s happening around him.
Buddy
this just my personal opinion on this, but I think that one misses many more strikes with an indicator than tight-line/high-stick nymphing. It’s probably due to the fact that one is setting the hook with the slightest abnormal movement or feel of the line. I know that when I use a bobber (let’s call them what they really are) I tend to set only on the hard strikes, so I’m probably missing plenty of fish. The idea is to set anytime the bobber moves abnormally, I just don’t use one enough to really develop a feel for that.
I hate indicators myself.
Only time i use one is to get a fly at a certain depth.
Clarkman,
Shhh! We don’t want to upset the purists. Bobbers is so not in the fly fisherman image ;). But that is what they are, certainly.
BBW,
“Only time i use one is to get a fly at a certain depth.”
I think that is the only reason anyone uses them. That’s kind of their purpose. Being able to cast across a current and get the fly to drift properly at the correct depth without the current between you and it interfering. Since you can see your line, you can mend it when appropriate, and since you can see the indicator, you can see when drag starts to adversely effect your drift.
Otherwise, it’s much easier to fish without them. Especially in the area of strike detection. Much easier to feel a fish pull on the line than to interpret whats happening thirty or more feet away by looking at a small floating bobber.
Buddy
I appreciate everyones input. Gives me something to ponder over the winter and something to work on come spring.
Buddy,
I agree with you. Although both types of fishing use nymphs they are different. Basically indicators are a visual form a fishing just like dry fly fishing. Tight line fishing is a tactile form of fishing and is harder to explain that indicator fishing. That is the main reason guides almost always rig their clients up with indicators. They can tell their clients when they missed a strike, how to mend, etc. How can you tell a client they missed a strike tight line nymphing when the client has the rod and the guide does not feel the strike?
I believe that tight line nymphing is the best technique in riffle water with a cobbled bottom or in structure that has variations in water depth. If the water depth is constantly changing an indicator is only occasionally placing the nymphs at the right depth. too shallow and it hangs up. Too deep and it drifts the nymphs above the fish. An indicator fisher who catches a fish in this type of water does so only when the depth of the indicator happens to match the depth of the fish. You will place your nymphs at or near the bottom much more often when tonight line nymphing in this type of water.
Riffles and turbulent flow also favor tight line nymphing because it helps mask the longitudinal drag as we keep a relatively tight line to the nymphs.
Smooth flows of relatively even depth are better fished with indicators. In smooth flows, the gradient between the velocity of the indicator at the top and the flies near the bottom are less than in turbulent flow. There are also fewer surface waves to make the nymphs bob up and down as the indicator bobs. It is also much more easier to detect subtle takes in smooth flows.
I think that if a fisher uses only a single method they are sometimes not using the best method for the situation at hand.
I’ve fished the Madison River who it has been extremely crowded and the only way I could fish a piece of water I liked was to fish behind another fly fisher. I’ve asked fly fishers if they would mind if I fished behind them and followed them up the river. I always pick a fly fisher that is indicator fishing because I know that in the riffles of the Madison there will be fish that he has not even presented his fly to.
That is the traditional instruction. Strike when the indicator hesitates its drift.
But there is a corollary to that rule. Strike when the indicator does not move at all after a cast. The indicator does not have to move to indicate a fish!
I learned this lesson from Chuck Rizzuto on the San Juan. I cast behind a rock and the indicator just stayed in one place, it never moved or went under water. He told me to strike and to my surprise, I had a fish on. I asked him how he knew that I had a fish when the indicator never went down or even twitched.
He said that the current should have washed the indicator out from behind the rock! Something was holding in that position and it was probably a fish. I’ve had that very same thing happen to me several times since. So if you cast behind a rock and the indicator does not wash out, strike. It happened to me twice last year.
I nymph with the straight line method in smaller streams where the target area, say a soft pocket or a seam are within easy high sticking it distance. But, on the rivers out west, which tend to be fairly large, nymphing with a strike indicator is a far more productive way to go. You can cast out, toss in a mend, and work the seams and soft waters that are close to you then slowly add more line and work the waters that are a much longer cast away from you. If you only tight lined or high sticked those waters you have to pass up a lot of opportunities for fish. I prefer the Frog Hair indicators as they are really easy to move up and down the leader to adjust the depth of the nymphs. The nymphs have to be touching the bottom or you are not deep enough.
Larry —sagefisher—
to me, that includes “any abnormal movement”…since typically a bobber is going to float down with the current…
but hey, just a matter of semantics…
I generally use indicators when nymphing, whether on smaller streams / rivers or the bigger rivers in the Intermountain West. Part of that may be because that is how I got started - fishing a single gold ribbed hare’s ear nymph under an indicator on the Henry’s Fork.
I do occasionally nymph without an indicator ( whether it be a dry fly or a yarn indicator ) on smaller streams, but for me that is not as satisfying. I think that may be because I am a very visual person. People who are not so visual may prefer the tactile aspect of nymphing without an indicator because that suits their make up better, as much as what they think about fishing with or without an indicator or how they feel about it.
When I am fishing nymphs only, as opposed to fishing a nymph trailing a dry fly, I usually fish two nymphs, and almost for sure on larger rivers. That is not just a matter of giving the fish two opportunities to eat what I am presenting, or giving them two different flies to choose from. The first nymph is going to run at the bottom, or close to it, in the shallower water, and the second one is going to invariably be as deep or deeper than the first one. When there is a depression, or seam, or hole, the second nymph is likely going to fill it.
I know a lot of guys ( SE Idaho ) who like to trail a small nymph, like a p.t. or copper john, behind a big nymph, like a weighted stonefly. Their accounts of how the fishing went usually suggests that the fishies like the small flies better - that is the one the fish usually take. But, I think, not because the fishies like the small nymph better, but because it is deeper.
Several years ago I fished a moderately deep run with a fairly soft current that formed for just one year on a stretch of the South Fork of the Snake that I liked to fish. I fished a weighted stonefly nymph about 5’ under an indicator and trailed an unweighted t.c.t.k. ( midge larva ) about 18" behind the stonefly. I worked the same one hundred yards of water several times over the course of about six hours.
On that day, I took fifteen brown trout, ten cutthroat, and fifteen mountain whitefish. About twenty five of the fish took the t.c.t.k. and fifteen took the stonefly. Most of the trout took the t.c.t.k. and most of the whitefish took the stonefly. I think what best explains that result is the tandem nymph rig. Whitefish tend to hang in the faster and shallower water - they got the first nymph coming to them, the stonefly. The trout tend to hang in the deeper, softer water. The stonefly probably was not scraping bottom where they were, but the midge filled the hole and they ate it.
That is just one example of using a tandem rig under an indicator, whatever size nymphs you are like to use. Generally, I fished two big weighted stoneflies on the South Fork, and more often than not, the whitefish took the lead fly and the trout took the second one - for the same reason I had the distribution between the stonefly and midge larva in the first example, i.e. varying water depth and the kind of water the two different species prefer.
Fishing this kind of water with tandem nymph rigs without an indicator would be very difficult for most folks, and especially shorter people, which would include me.
John
I am not a dry fly purist or snob. It just so happens that most of the waters I choose to fish in a given year are great dry fly waters. With that being said when I do fish nymphs I personally like using a bobber aka: indicator. I don’t know maybe the reason for it is because that is how I learned to nymph. I was also taught to set the hook when I see any abnormal movement on the indicator. I was also learned real quickly to change the length on the bobber. Good mending helps, and so does “twitching” the flies from time to time (especially on some of the tailwaters here when using RS2’s and Midge emergers) What is kind of funny is that in the few rivers I chuck lead there is no mistaking a strike. I swear some of those fish just hammer the flies. I have also found (recently as in last year) that I am more successful using 3 nymphs rather than 2.
But the great thing about this sport is that everybody can do what they like and what works best for them. Personally I would rather be on some obscure freestone in the mountains chucking big bushy dries than chucking lead on a tailwater; but hey that’s just what I like to do.
…I think are ‘success’ and ‘trying’. If you’re like me and just flat don’t like indicator flyfishing, then you prolly will be more ‘successful’ with tight line flyfishing than if you ‘try’ to indicator flyfish, since i’m sensing you don’t like indicator flyfishing in the first place. Or in the words of some comedian, ‘when i find something that works, i stick with it’.
Cheers,
MontanaMoose
I think you’ve hit on something there that I hadn’t really thought of in that way. Tight line feels more natural to me, either because I prefer it or maybe I prefer it because it feels more natural (guess it doesn’t matter) so it would stand to reason that I would do better with it. Thanks.
Hi,
I don’t nymph fish very often, but when I do I use a bobber / indicator / whatever when using weighted nymph patterns. Unweighted ones are just hackleless spiders really. But, if the fish are deep, and near the bottom, the indicator gives you the depth control while allowing you to still cast the flies (if awkwardly in my case) and think in terms of drifts, etc. It’s best to cast upstream (or up and across; think dry fly type presentations) and then immediately pull in any slack between you and the indicator without moving it. Keep retrieving the slack as everything comes down stream towards you. Sometimes the indicator ticks as your nymph bounces on the bottom; this is good, that’s where you generally want the fly to be. Eventually, you somehow can tell (so I’m told) the difference between a tick and a fish. That, or you just start thinking every strike that doesn’t produce a fish was just “too slow” rather than in response to a “tick”. If you are hooking the bottom a lot, shorten the disance between indicator and fly, and if you’re getting no ticks, lengthen it. I try and start off with something like 1.5 times the depth of the water, and adjust from there based upon the current speed (slower = shorter, faster = longer). Once you get into the zone, though, the action can really heat up quickly.
- Jeff
One thing I’ve noticed in this thread, and several others about similar topics:
Seems folks beleive that you can do one or the other, as far as nymphing goes. Sort of decide beforehand which one is best for them. And that if you are proficient at one of these techniques, then you don’t need the other one. As if they were interchangeable and a tight line nymphing technique could be used anytime you wanted to, and so could an indicator.
Not true.
There are waters where it’s not either/or, if catching fish is what you want to do.
There are conditions where you’d use an indicator and tight line techniques won’t work. Not a matter of how skilled you are with it.
There are conditions where you’d use a tight line technique and an indicator won’t work. If you can’t do it, you won’t catch fish.
Neither one of these techniques is difficult. While indicator fishing has more nuances and requires mastery of a larger skills set, you can start with simple basics and still catch fish. Tight line techniques are limited in their range. While they are simple in the extreme to start with, the subtle nuances of weightng, drift control, and reading the water require lots of practice and study.
Either of these techniques can take decades to master.
Someone who claims to be a competant angler should learn to do both. That way, when faced with certain conditions on a river, you can look at it, choose the most effective method, and then be proficient enough at it to catch some fish.
If you wish to be one dimensional, and many of us choose that, that’s another issue.
Buddy
Buddy makes a good point. There’s nothing that says you can only use one or the other method. I know I have the bad habit of forgetting to try nymphs and dry flies. I tend to look at the water from the perspective of how to fish a team of wee wets, rather than look at the water and decide how it is best fished. I think that’s partly due to the fact that I have fished wets much more, which makes it harder for me to see “how to nymph it properly”. Not sure I’m being clear, and not sure if this would apply to anyone else. But, I’m hoping that as I get more experience with different techniques, and as my experience with each tends to catch up somewhat with what I have for wee wets, then I’ll start reading the water differently. At the moment, the water I see as nymph water is well suited to indicator fishing (deep pools, rather than riffles and pocket water), which is probably reflected in my previous post.
One step at a time. It’s all good fun.
- Jeff
Jeff,
I think we all tend to look at water based on how we like to fish.
I’m certainly guilty of it, if that is the term. Some places and times I fish, if the fish aren’t taking topwater I just go home. I want to fish with a surface fly, and if the fish won’t cooperate this time, they will the next.
I’ll often decide before I even leave the cabin that I’m going to Czech nymph that day and prerig acordingly. I won’t even consider another method for that outing. There ae lots of techniqes out there that I want to catch a fish or ten on.
Then there is that whole trying out new techniques and flies thing that I find myself doing more and more often. You can’t be sure it will work until it does work. Often I’ll fish several outings with what is a new technique for me until I either figure out how to make it work or just give up on it.
I know that I’ve caught plenty of fish in my lifetime. Since I can’t travel to fish exotic locations, or even lots of different ones, I’ve concentrated on learning to catch the same fish different ways. I’m not too upset over a morning fishing where I don’t catch anything anymore.
But during the summer I get to fish alot. Like every day if I want to, and I usually do.
Many fly fishermen only get so many days on the water. If their focus is catching fish with a fly rod, regardless of the technique involved, then it just makes sense to me that they try to become at least marginally adept at enough different presentaions and methods to help them be successful over the widest possible range of conditions.
When some try to make it sound like one technique is somehow better than another when they are, in fact, different, interferes with this in my opinion.
Buddy
From early childhood to now, I have always done some sort of fishing. My first rod and reel were made by Zebco and I fished for anything that would cooperate. As I got older and on my own, I started to fish for bass only and joined bass clubs. I really enjoyed the club tournaments and graduated to fishing larger tournaments open to all. I continued with fishing for bass and fishing tournaments until about 15 years ago when I discovered that the enjoyment was gone due to jet skis, more people on the lakes and most all tounaments were on the weekends when the lakes were covered with just too many people. During my years of bass fishing, you never used a bobber or live bait. I spent 30+ years tight line fishing plastic lures and curly tailed grubs and catching fish in 10 to 30 feet of water. When I gave up the bass tournaments and sold my bass boat (which my wife could not believe I would do) I turned to the rivers where there were no outboards and fewer people and I found my enjoyment of fishing again. I picked up a fly rod, started tying my own flies and have never looked back. I love fly fishing and all the peace and quiet it provides on the rivers. I brought to my fly fishing the “tight line” style of fishing with no indicators/bobbers and I feel I am very successful with the “catching” part of fly fishing. You can probably count on one hand how many times I have tried dry fly fishing for trout in the past few years. I just do not like that great style of fly fishing, but, admire those that do. I have tried indicator/bobber fishing and I just cannot force myself to fly fish that way. When I have tried it my mind takes over and starts telling me that I could do the same thing with a 6 to 7 foot ultra-light spinning rod, 4 pound test mono, a small weighted fly and a small bobber/indicator. That bothers me because I want to use a fly rod in a way that cannot be duplicated with another type of fishing rod. Fly rods rule with me. I love them. I have spent so many years “tight line” fishing, that I just cannot force myself to use an indicator. It just does not seem like fly fishing to me. Please notice that I said “to me”. I know many use the indicator and that is fine with me. I just cannot use that style. I watch my fly line like a hawk and (to me) that puts me closer to my fish and more on a “one-to-one” relationship. Some have said you are missing fish by not using an indicator and that is fine with me because I usually catch my share and am happy with my results at the end of the day. My rivers here do not have long enough stretches of the same depth of water to secure an indicator at a certain depth and insure that you are fishing close to the bottom. We have “pocket” water with riffles separating holes. I prefer to cast a weighted fly upstream, mend the line and feed line to it as it drifts down, across and away from me. This is fly fishing to me. I concentrate on my fly line where it enters the water and keep all my senses alert for the tell-tell indication of a strike by the line movement or non-movement and the “tick” the fly rod translates to my rod hand. In the narrow seams of riffles, where the water is deeper, I will cast upstream and “high-stick” the fly and this “high-stick” style is very much like “indicator” fishing to me.
Sorry for the long post, but, I just wanted to express my feelings on indicator fishing and why I do not use it. The above is just my style of fly fishing and I enjoy it.
You fish whatever way gives you enjoyment and I will fish my way. As long as we enjoy it, nothing else matters. In all waters there is a place for “tight-line” fishing, indicator fishing and dry fly fishing. Some will say you are not a true fly fisherman if you do not try to learn all three ways, but, I am not trying to excel in all areas of fly fishing so that I can always catch fish no matter the situation. I fly fish as an excuse to get out on the rivers to enjoy the peace and quiet, the birds, the flowers, the music of the moving water, the animals, the fresh air and all that my Creator has created.
I hope and pray that all find their style of fly fishing that allows them the time to enjoy the surroundings because that is the true enjoyment of fly fishing and not the catching always…
The above are my true and honest opinions and nothing more…
Warren -
Really enjoyed your post and your description of your favored approach to fly fishing. I approach fly fishing very differently than you do, partly because of my preferences and partly because of the differences ( real or imagined ) in the places we fish. I probably won’t use the technique you favor, but your presentation of it makes it more likely that I will consider it at some point. Thanks.
John