Could anyone provide me pictures of multi-fly rigs please?
It’s something I’ve never done before & I’d like to try a nymph under a dry. How do I rig the two together & how far beneath the dry should I fish the nymph?
I recall reading of 3 or 4 flies being rigged on droppers at various depths, but I can’t figure out how on earth they’d be rigged or cast!
Theres alot of ways to do it, but this will get you started.
Rob,
The dropper nymph, or it could be another dry, can be anywhere from say 8 inches to 2 feet below the dry. Some people go longer but if so, I would go to a double nymph rig with a strike indicator (yea, I know, a bobber 
)
The depth is determined by what type of nymph, and how close you want it to the surface. The nymph can be a bead head, where it will drop deeper, or virtually no weight where it will be just under the surface like an emerger.
I usually tie it off the curve of the top fly and make sure your dry is big enough to stay afloat with a dropper tied to it.
Fluorocarbon makes a great tippet material for these.
Open up your cast, don’t do a tight loop and minimize your false casting. The longer that dry/dropper is in the air and not on the water the greater the risk of a mess, which you will get every so often anyway.
It can be a very effective way to catch trout but I tend to not like using a dry/dropper much, especially when drifting a river, every mess means you will miss a lot of good fishing area if you can’t anchor.
Good luck.
Larry —sagefisher—
sagefisher has offered some excellent advice. Can’t add much to that. Good luck with dropper rigs!
if you end up with a two nymph rig, I like big/little, dark/light. that way the fish have a choice, and if one is getting hit more than another, you can rerig with two little darks or what have you.
Here’s a good article on the topic. The instructions at the bottom for tying the knot on your fingers initially (instead of trying to tie it to the hook bend) will be extremely valuable.
Look at http://www.flyanglersonline.com/features/bobboese/122908.php
About half way through you will see the three primary methods for attaching the dropper to the dry.
You might look at the “DVD Wet Fly Ways” with Davy Wotton. Although he is fishing a cast of 3 wets, he shows the knots, rigging, and so forth. It is a good DVD.
When I fish a dry and a dropper, I run 6"-12" of extra leader through the eye of the hook. I add a section of tippet, usually one size smaller, and tie it on with three, overhand knots. The new piece of tippet is laid alongside the trailing piece of leader dangling down from the dry. I bring both pieces of leader around in a loop and thread both pieces through the loop three times. Think Surgeon’s Knot with three half-hitches instead of two. Make sure the knot is pulled very tight. Otherwise sadness is likely to result.
Ed
I like to use a popper or gurgle-pop, with a bead-head wooly bugger as a dropper. The floater acts as a strike indicator, as most of the time, the fish hit the dropper.
Hey thanks guys! The Midcurrent article was very enlightening.
I’ll give a few combos a try next time I’m out on the river 
I prefer to leave a long tag end on my tippet for my dropper. I hate trying to tie a knot on the hook bend, I fish barbless and I’ll tend to lose my dropper when I tie to the hook bend.
Ray,
I know what you mean, I used to have that problem as well so I started double wrapping the tippet around the bend rather than just one wrap then I tie the know. That stopped the lost flies, even on the commercially made barbless hooks.
Larry —sagefisher—
I don’'t tye my first fly to the tippet at all, I just run the tippet through the eye, then tie smaller tippet ( usually flouro ) with a blood knot. I learned this watching those Leroy Hyatt DVD’s
Same here. Looooooooooong tag end.
Here too so to speak. I know they catch fish, but I can’t help but think tying off the bend effects how the front fly moves. I take a furled leader and add about 5’of tippet. I then tie a 12" tag about 2’ to 4’ up from bottom. I will tie either a midge, nymph or DRY on this tag then a bead head or streamer on the longer.
With the streamer on the bottom, it looks like a bait fish chasing food.
On my sinking lines I take 6’ to 10’ of tippet. Fold it in half with one side longer than the other (ex: 10’ fold at 6’ and 4’) I put a loop at the fold and do the loop to loop with the line. Again, tie smaller fly on short, bigger fly on longer. I average a lot of doubles doing this. Last week I caught a Tiger Trout on the dropper and a Rainbow on the tagged dry.
Well, this old dawg learned something, thanks Joni. I will be re-rigging my leaders for a short trip planned for this evening after supper.