I have read in different places about skipping a fly dry fly or skipping a fly along a river bottom. Can someone explain more about what that is?
I believe this is a referance to Dapping. Where you lift the line and leader off the water and just let the fly touch the water.
Or it could be like skatting.
Where on the swing, you lift as much line and leader off the watter and let the fly skate over the water.
Are you sure you don’t mean “Skateing”?
Skating would make sense. It’s a killer way to present a caddis.
Gary La fontaine reconmended skipping flies up under undercut banks or overhanging cover. To do this he said you should make your cast with the rod low to your side and parallel to the water. Aim your fly to hit the water short of the overhang with an overpowered cast and it will skip under the cover. This is supposed to mimic a terrestrial or caddiss blown across the water by the wind. I have tried it a few times on the P.M. and had remarkable success at catching bushes and a few trout on some of the occasions when I got it right.
all leaders tangle; mine are just better at it than most. Jim
Here is where one reference for where it is talked about on the feather craft website.
"F-C “CRACKLEBACK” Pattern-Sheet by Ed Story. So many requests for tying instructions for Ed’s F-C Crackleback Dry Woolly from customers worldwide. Updated pattern-sheet reflecting updated body-material and technique. A favorite trout fly pattern nationwide. It can be fished dry, or as a subsurface skipping emerger, all on the same cast(drift)! We’ve fished this one pattern from upstate CA, to upstate NY for a lifetime of success. Step by step tying and fishing instructions. $1.50 "
Don’t know what a subsurface skipping emerger would do.