often after I’ve cast my offering, i’m faced with untying myself as a result of my olympic casting style. To add insult to injury, these times when the fly doesn’t benefit from my seductive, highly proprietary , and secret manipulations I find a fish on the other end of the line…
This occurs even in the warmer times of the year like now in Charlotte, NC… I just find it hard to leave it alone ( WB’s nymphs and poppers)
do you guys see the same thing??
Ummmm. . . I don’t get it.
My brain hurts…what are you trying to say?
Now I’m no mind reader. But, I think what ZZ is trying to say is, that once he has untangled the casting mess he has made he finds that a fish is on the end of his line.
Sometimes no manipulation of the fly is what the fish prefer. Try different retrives and let them tell you which they prefer.
If that is what he is trying to say then, yeah that happens to me too sometimes.
So is the fish taking the fly.
OR is the fish pulling on his line trying to tighten the knot!
I am perfectly capable of tightening my own knots, its seducing fish that I have torle with…
it appears that here>> LESS IS MORE <<<<
ZZ,
Happens quite a bit. Seems like every now and again when you get distracted, by a tangle, a cup of coffee, a conversation, or whatever, and forget or are unable to manipulate the fly right away, a fish chooses that moment to strike.
Makes you think that maybe, just maybe, you should try just letting the fly sit when you ARE ready.
Good Luck with that. I’m too impatient, but it may work.
Buddy
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Sorry guys, Maybe I was too cute:
after years of using Ultralite stuff with curleytails I am addicted to ‘movin’ that lure’
If I had kept track of the count, i’d bet that the productive casts made with manipulation of the fly compared to no manipulation ( due to what ever reason ) would be skewed on the no movement side. I’ve noticed this with plastic worms also.
This is helping me to become more productive and I offered this post to start a conversation about trying sooooo hard that we jinx our trip. Leaving a popper still is torture for me!
I haven’t seen many examples , but I suspect that many aquatic insects move slowly most of the time and if a terrestial finds itself in the water its motion is inefficient untill it drowns. I understand that stripping may induce strikes for several reasons ( agitation, minnow simulation,etc.),but I’d like to know if others see at least as much success with little to no movement??
Hope I haven’t ruffled any feathers and yea, my humor excapes even me somtimes.
ZZ Cast one out on the water and lean back in the canoe. DON’T wrap line around the finger, it hurts when that fish hits!!
Wyo-blizzard
Oldtimers here will recall my story about lazing in a canoe fingering through my fly box just prior to hitting a wooded bank. My deerhair Dahlberg was at rest a meter or less from where I was sitting. Early morning. Sun was up. Been casting and releasing nice bass since before dawn, and with a bit of breeze intermittently playing with the calm water, figured to try something a little different. Maybe a streamer. Maybe a Clouser. Maybe a Gill Buster. My buddy and I were just chillin’ and chatting when the water exploded. Damn near gave us both heart attacks. Hooked itself, actually, and I was able to bring about a three pounder or so to hand. My friend said, “Now that (the explosion) is the most beautiful sound in all of nature.” I figured it was once the tea was brewed hearing my old lady say from the tent, “Honey, you got a few minutes?” JGW
I haven’t seen many examples , but I suspect that many aquatic insects move slowly most of the time and if a terrestial finds itself in the water its motion is inefficient untill it drowns. I understand that stripping may induce strikes for several reasons ( agitation, minnow simulation,etc.),but I’d like to know if others see at least as much success with little to no movement??
After I cast and the fly drops, I add fly movement by very slow strip and pause stripping (mixed sequences) of the flyline for subsurface flies until I have retrieved the fly back to me, then recast and do the same thing. Sometimes I will use faster strips when using streamers (baitfish imitations) but not always.
With surface flies, I give it one or two short quick line-strips and let it sit. Then I cast again and do the same thing.
Hopefully at the beginning or end of these casts, a fish will bite 
.
Robert B. McCorquodale
Sebring, FL
“Flip a fly”
I’ve cast out big hula poppers and let them sit 10 minutes without moving them, then I give them a slight twitch only to see a huge buldge of water under the popper of a big bass I just spooked with that slight twitch. To me no time is too long to let a popper sit but it is sure hard to do.
Mike B
ZZ,
I got it the first time! Does that mean that great minds think alike or that warped minds think alike? I’ll let you be the judge.
Coincidentally a similar version of what you’ve described has happened to me 3 times in the last 2 days. The first day I was wadeing and fishing for bedding bluegill and redears while roll casting when I’d strip in all the line I wanted and was then forming the “D” loop behind me to make another roll cast, the fish would bite and I couldn’t make a proper roll cast because I had a fish on. What a drag, right?
Then today, a friend and I were crappie and bass fishing from a boat and I laid my rod down with the line on the water while I lipped a fish for my friend and when I stripped my line in, I had a crappie on.
I think the moral to all these stories, as you correctly point out, is that we often “overwork” our bait or fly. Sometimes we need to adopt more of a “do nothing” approach to our presentations.
Example: I used to like to pitch a rubber skirted bass jig with the hook cut off to various targets in the living room. Our cat would sit and stare at the jig mesmerized until I’d stop it dead still then the cats tail would start twitching and after a while it would get up on its haunches and pounce on the jig. Another good example is sight fishing for carp. Often you can cast and cast to the same fish and he’ll ignore your fly but if you’ll strip it by him and then let it fall and set motionless, just like the cat, he’ll ease over, inspect it, tip up and suck it in.