We?ve all heard the advice about the advantages of fishing two or more flies at the same time. It helps you find out what the fish are eating. You should start with a light and dark nymph (wet fly, dry fly, steamer) to see what the fish want. Use a big dry fly as a strike indicator. Use a heavy, weighted nymph to carry down you delicate size #18 pheasant tail nymph. Tie a small wet fly in front of a large streamer and fish get jealousy and try to snatch the wet fly before the other ?fish? can get it. A big gaudy dry fly helps you to find the midget dry fly in shadows or other poor light condition.
We?ve also gotten pages of advice on how to rig two or more flies. Tie the hind-end fly to the hook bend of the front fly. When tying a double or triple surgeon?s knot, leave the tag end of the larger diameter tippet to tie your second fly. If you make your own leaders you can tie a dropper line at any (and all) knots in your leader.
My question is this. With all this good advice on why and how to fish multiple flies, how many warm-water fishermen routinely start their fishing with two or more flies. I?m not asking have you ever done it. I?m asking how many of us get to our favorite river, pond or lake and have our rod pre-rigged with multiple flies. Put another way, how many start probing their favorite water with two or more flies before they try anything else? If you fail to use this obviously superior method (at least according to the sportswriters), what?s your main reasoning for sticking with just one fly when you could have a dozen or more in the water? Just curious. Sorry Doug, thinking again . 8T
I usually take at least 4 fly rods with me when I go out in the canoe.
that lets me try four flies ata time to see what is working.
Also with my poor casting stroke , I spend more time untangling flies than fishing.
Some of the best fishers I know of do fish two fly rigs, But almost always a pair of the same pattern. as it covers two depth’s and lanes in turn doubleing your chances of success. as well as provide many other specific different advantages.
Especially while nymph fishing… I fish 2 fly rigs at times but pretty much limit it to nymph fishing in streams and rivers.I’ve never done the hopper dropper/Dry and Wet types of things as I see this as just another use of a bobber…
Edit: Glad I reread this!! Sorry For dancin round the question previously. :? ::: Do I start with two flies…No, I am a firm believer in the simple life…And One fly keeps things firmly rooted in the simple side of things…
What Rick said. To avoid tangles and casting such a ungainly tandem rig. I typically use it as a last desperation method but not always. Sometimes a scud dropper is just the ticket.
When fishing for warmwater fish other than LMB I start with two flies at least 95% of the time. While it is legal to fish with 3 flies I find that the trio causes too many tangles.
one time i was using two flies and on the first one i caught a really big bluegill and on the second a medium sized bass i thought i had a really big fish on
It depends on the situation…if I am fishing new water and/or an area I have not patterned the fish, then multiple flies help me locate and pattern the fish. In ponds I am familiar with, I rarely use multiple flies because I know what works and I use it. The only multiple rig I will use is the trailing fly behind a Miss Prissy or other top water fly. Other rigs/flies invite far too many tangles to make it worthwhile.
I’m another one who starts with two flies. Never fished three or more, for some reason just doesn’t feel right. No real explanation there. But the times when I will fish a single fly are few and far between. The only thing I don’t like about is that I have a tendency to only change out the dropper fly. I’ll use the top fly longer because I don’t want to waste that 24" of tippet I use to connect the flies, just to use another 24". I know I’m cheap, but that is just me. And I will use a hopper/dropper combo all summer long without fail on my home waters. Although, I did just learn a nifty technique from Montana Moose. It is a nymphing technique that I have sworn not to divulge. But that is neither here nor there. Bottom line, tandem flies ROCKS!
i wanted to say that i don’t like 2 fly rigs except for an dry fly and dropper which i only use maybe twice a year. MY opinion. i just don’t like them and they have never increased my catch rate or anything super like that. i just don’t like 'em.
my opinion take it or leave it.
chris
I fished a two fly setup one day and caught 2 trout at the same time 3 times that day. It was interesting but I didn’t have a desire to do it again.
Doug
If you’ll use a uni knot to attach your dropper fly, then you can pull open the knot and change the top fly without having to lose the dropper leader OR rety the knot…
I always start with two flies when I go after bluegills. Usually a spider or popper on top and a small nymph beneath. I get rid of the two flies if I begin catching doubles or I determine that one or the other is taking the larger fish.
For bass, I will start with two flies when I’m ‘prospecting’ new areas of open waters I don’t know well. Here it’s normally a small streamer or large nymph with a larger and much heavier streamer behind it a decent ways (about 30 to 40 inches). Lets me cover two depths that way.
I do a lot of double or tripple fly rigs for trout fishing. Dry dropper and multiple nymph rigs in moving water and streamers with a nymph behind for most of my lake fishing. Again, if I catch a double, I ditch the second fly…kind of embarassing to catch two trout at a time…
I’m not having tangling troubles with these rigs. Could be because I couldn’t throw a tight loop if I tried, and my wide flowing line path keeps the flies from tangling up…got to get some benefit from my casting deficiencies…
Back to warm water, if I have ANY kind of clue as to where the bass are, and especially if they are around any kind of cover, I’ll use one fly. It’s more accurate to cast with just one fly, and that’s often the most important thing in bass fishing.
If you are one of the many that are resigned to fishing small public waters that are under a lot of fishing presure you quickly learn that the fish are generally smaller and harder to catch. The other drawback is that you may not be as familiar with the water as you would like to be. Because of this I will fish a popper and dropper while I’ searching for fish. If I find that one fly is working better than the other I might then go back to one fly again this is for fishing more open waters. If I’m covering structure I would probably use one fly but might go with two nymphs if getting hung up wasn’t much of an issue. My casting isn’t the greatest and I can put a windknot in my fly line si I generally won’t fish a tandem fly rig if the wind is blowing.
I’m glad I asked this question because the responses have been enlightening and god knows that I can use all the enlightenment that I can get a hold of. I believe that I’m going to try out 2 or maybe even three flies more frequently in my warm water fishing. The “yes, I fish multiple flies in warmwater” group has won out by a narrow margin. I’ve listed the results below.
(5 votes) Yes, I fish multiple flies frequently or always.
In the past, I’ve seldom used multiple flies because of the tangling problem, pretty much what Rick and others have said. But I believe that they may be worth a second try. Beside, given the way I decorate trees, brush and scrubs, I’ll have an excuse to buy more fly tying material. :lol: 8T
8T, I feel really bad that I finished last, though I’m not sure what the scale represents since I din’t say whether or not I use more than one fly that I noticed. I will now reveal a well kept secret, not the one WildOne refuses (I’m grateful) to reveal, but another ‘cast’ as they once were called. In this 2 fly approach, the point fly is a wet…though it could be any fairly large weighted nymph, a salmon/steelhead fly or even something like a big clouser since we’re talking warm water.
The big fly is more like an ‘anchor’ in this arrangement and the second fly…any dry fly, but in this case, something for gill, other bream and smallies and what ever else you may fly fish for in warm moving water that will rise to floating flies. The cast is across and down and made in such a way that the dry fly dangles over the water while the ‘anchor’ or wet fly remains under, moving with the current or somewhat slower than the current. Skillful mending, yes but once you try it and once you see that you can ‘dap’ your dry anywhere along the drift and when a smallie smashes the fly (damsel dries work great here) you prolly won’t spend much time fly fishing any other way.
This is an old, old method and I hope that I haven’t disrespected those that use this method and that guard it like a dog with a ham shank, but 8T needs to know.
. 8T 
But that is neither here nor there. Bottom line, tandem flies ROCKS!