Fly Blog

You can tell high water by examining a river or stream. High water will be characterized by narrow banks and streamside weeds being under water. High water typically means fast water and fishing in the middle of the water is futile. Fish are not likely to rise to dry flies because of the water speed, and it will be difficult to get a nymph deep enough or natural enough. The best tactic for this kind of water is to fish the near the banks, at the tail out of pools, at the head water of shallow riffles, and in slower side channels.

If the water is dirty from run off, the problem is complicated further but water that has visibility of a foot or more can still be fished with a dry fly. Streamer fishing can be excellent in these conditions. Small fish and crustaceans get pushed around in this type of water and the cover of dirty water provides conditions where larger trout that normally don’t feed during the day will start feeding. Light colored large streamer patterns, yellow or white can be very effective.

Low clear water also provides unique challenges and opportunities. Typically the water is easier to read as it is possible to see the bubble lines moving through a pool. With the slower flow the fish are likely to move to a dry fly and can be seen sipping insects off the surface. With low water it is often possible to see the trout. With the fish hovering closer to the surface their ability to see rises dramatically and they are more cautious and aware of the surrounding.

Approach the fish from downstream and be cautious. Use a long leader. Twelve feet is not too long. Stay low. If you are fishing nymph or wet flies put it ahead of the fish by twice its depth. If the fish is two feet below the surface drop your nymph four feet in front of the fish. If you think the fish has taken the fly strip in some line or pull the rod to the side. Don’t lift the rod because if you do and the fish hasn’t taken the fly you will spook it.

by Mark Waldin www.flycatcherinc.com Should you always use the line weight recommended by the fly rod or rod blank manufacturer? When might you want to move down to one weight lighter than recommended?

Fly rods generally work great with the recommended fly line when you have the recommended 30 feet of line out. (Fly line weight is determined by the weight of the first 30 feet of fly line even though most fly lines carry significant weight beyond the first 30 feet.) But try to go beyond carrying 30 feet in the air and some rods will just flatten out in their response. For example a 5 weight rod is designed to carry 140 grains of line which is what 30 feet of 5 weight fly line will give you. But what if you need more line in the air to get the distance you are trying for? Depending on your rod, moving down to 4 weight line at 120 grains will let you put more line in the air, stay under 140 grains, and get the response out of the rod you are looking for.

All of this really depends upon the rod you are using, the type of fly line you are using (weight forward, double taper, etc.) and your casting ability.

The bottom line is that it is a good idea to experiment with your rod. Test it with differing weights and different line types. Experience its response. By doing so you will increase your arsenal for fishing in different conditions and increase your fishing enjoyment.

by Mark Waldin www.flycatcherinc.com Ever wander why they make the hook eyes on small lightweight fly fishing flies so doggone small? And so doggone hard to thread?

Here is a piece of trivia for use with your fly fishing buddies. As flies get smaller the wire and point become thinner. Manufacturers don’t want the point of the fly to fit through the hook eye. If it did, a box of hooks would become interlinked into a jumbled pile with hooks threaded through hook eyes. It would be difficult if not impossible to unscramble. To avoid this, hook eyes are made smaller as the hooks are made smaller. The hook eyes are always made smaller than the hook wire thickness!

Here are few tips to make working with these small flies a bit easier:

1. Before you hit the water check the hook eye and make sure it is free and clear. Use an eye cleaner to clear any threads or glue that may be occluding the eye.

2. Make sure you use very sharp tippet clips to snip the tippet before you try to thread it. Dull clippers will smash the tippet before cutting it. This will create a lump at the end of the tippet that could be difficult to fit through the eye.

3. Try adapting an electronic test to a hook holder for use in the field. These tools which can be found at Radio Shack are a spring loaded loop in a plastic sleeve used to clip onto electronic circuits for electrical testing. They make great fly holders to help with threading.

4. If you have trouble seeing your fly on the water try floating tandem flies. Tie a larger fly on your tippet that is easy to see. Tie a second small fly to the hook bend on the first fly twelve inches from the first fly. You can see to within a foot of where you fly is by following the larger fly.

by Mark Waldin www.flycatcherinc.com Several blogs back I suggested that fly line be attached to fly backing using a loop to loop connection. I also suggested that the loop in the fly line be made using a couple of nail knots. Now I am going to show how to tie a nail knot.

Rule number one on nail knots is to get yourself a nail knot tool. It will work much better than using a nail and keep you from pulling out your hair.

Below I show a nail knot tool as a green tube which is one configuration of a nail knot tool.

Lay the two lines you want to knot with the tag ends facing opposite directions with the nail knot tool between them.

Wrap the tag end of one of the lines around the tool and back on both lines. Wrap it a total of six or seven times.

Feed the tag end of the line that you just wrapped through the center of the nail knot tool.

Remove the nail knot tool while holding the lines together as a unit.

Pull the tag end of the wrapped line to snug up the knot and trim the tag ends off.

by Mark Waldin www.flycatcherinc.com   Trout are cold blooded animals that need oxygenated water to survive.  Water that is too cold drops a trouts body temperature making them sluggish.  Water that is too warm is less oxygenated making a trout sluggish.

Water below 50 degrees F will slow trout down and push them into deeper water.  Fishing will be best in the middle of the day from about 11am to 3pm when the water is warmest and insects are most active.  Fish are not likely to rise and fly fishing on a dry fly is pretty useless.  Nymphs and streamers are the way to go.  Trout will be preserving energy and not likely to move far.  Fish your fly right near the bottom in slow water.  Cover likely spots thoroughly as the fish are not likely to move more than a foot to take a fly.

Between 50 and 55 degrees, trout will be active from mid-morning until sun down.  Trout will respond to a hatch but blind fishing a dry fly is not likely to be productive.  Nymphs and streamers are still the best but it is possible to fish further up in the water column.

From 55 to about 65 degrees trout will be active from dawn until after dusk, if insects are still active.  This is the ideal range for trout.  Dry fly fishing is at its best even if you cannot see trout rising.  Blind dry fly fishing can be very productive as the trout are likely to move several feet to take it.  Dead drift nymph and swinging are effective techniques as well.  Streamers work well and fast strip works best as trout chase the streamer without getting a good look at it.

From 65 to about 70 degrees, trout are becoming stressed and will be most active from dawn until mid-morning when the water is coolest.    Night fishing is also feasible and streamers on a slow swing in the tails of shallow pools can be very effective.  Most insect hatches have occurred once the river reaches these temperatures and what is left are small or terrestrial.  Go with no. 20 or smaller caddisflies or mayflies or, during the day, ants, grasshoppers, and beetles.  Fish near riffles with bubbles that help oxygenate the water.  Fish on a dead drift.

Temperatures above 70 degrees puts severe stress on trout as the water becomes oxygen depleted.  Trout should not be fished in these temperatures as they are unlikely to survive.  Trout will seek out shaded areas and often will find cooler water where a spring may be emptying into the river or stream.  If you use a thermometer you may be able to find these locations of lower water temperature where fish will congregate and where they are healthy and active enough to be fished on the fly.

by Mark Waldin www.flycatcherinc.com Weed beds create unique micro-habitats in a river. It very likely is home to minnows, fry, and damselfly, dragonfly, and mayfly nymphs. If the water is slightly alkaline it may hold scud as well.

Trout will live within the weed bed and will often lie just downstream of the bed waiting for nymphs to loosen and float by out of the weed bed. If you are fishing upstream, fish the area downstream of the bed first. Then work your way up the edge of the bed fishing as close to the weed bed as you can. If a dry fly is not taking trout, try a dry fly with a nymph dropped 18 to 24 inches off the hook bend of the dry fly. Often a trout will come to view the dry fly and go for the nymph.

If you are fishing downstream do the same thing, keeping the fly as close to the bed as possible allowing the fly drift along the bed as long as possible.

If you hook a trout keep your rod very high, really high. The trout will head straight for the weeds and the high stick will make it harder for him to get there. If the trout does make it into the weeds and seems to be caught up, keep pressure on. The fish will likely slowly back out of the weeds. If all fails and it appears the fish is stuck and not moving try releasing pressure altogether. The trout will likely back out of the weeds allowing you to pull the line taught and start the fight over.

If you

by Mark Waldin www.flycatcherinc.com A fly fisher can tell a lot by reading the bottom of a river. It holds a lot of information about the existence of trout. In some areas, especially in older geology like in the Eastern U.S., stream beds may have eroded down to bedrock. If the river floor has smooth bedrock it is going to hold little to no invertebrates on which trout feed and as a result, little to no fish.

A smooth uniform river bed made of sand and loose gravel is not much better than bedrock. What invertebrates it holds are few and what there are, are typically burrowed into the sand an inaccessible to fish for most of their life.

The more varied a river bottom is, the more aquatic life it will have. Varied sized rocks, boulders, stumps, fallen trees, and weeds all provide pockets and nooks for trout food to live. Those same objects create variations in river flow providing pocket water, eddies, and back currents of slow moving water where trout can hang out without wearing themselves out.

Steep and undercut river banks with overhanging vegetation often indicate deep water below and perhaps submerged logs and branches. The deep water, good hiding spots, shade from the vegetation, and the lure of insects falling from the overhanging limbs can make such a location a natural spot for finding trout.

by Mark Waldin www.flycatcherinc.com We’re all taught to look for seams in the river, under water boulders and sunken obstructions. But do you know how to fish a high mountain stream or river?

High gradient streams offer fast moving water with waterfalls, splash pools, and exposed boulders. This kind of environment is tough on fish. Their first objective is to escape the fast rushing water and find shelter. They will congregate in plunge pools, at the base of waterfalls, in eddies, deep holes, and bed depressions.

Hatches are inconsistent and sparse in this kind of water. Fish can’t afford to be particular. They’ll eat just about anything you serve up. Dry flies don’t need to match a particular species. Pick a fly that floats well and can handle the turbulent water. For nymphing pick a stonefly or mayfly nymph that closely matches the color of the river bed.

by Mark Waldin www.flycatcherinc.com We all probably start our fly fishing fly selection by looking for the right fly pattern immediately followed by the right hook size. But what do most of us really know about hooks and hook design? Are you buying a fly on a quality hook or are you buying for price? Do you care?

Hooks come in many designs. The major components of a fly fishing hook are:

• eye – the loop on the end of the hook where the line is attached
• shank – the straight section of the hook
• bend – the curved section of the hook
• barb – the sharp point on the hook
• gape – the distance from the point to the shank perpendicularly
• bite throat – the depth of the bend to the point

Fly hooks combine these features in various ways to come up with a variety of styles. The most common fly hook styles are Sproat, Sneck, Limerick, Kendal, Viking, Captain Hamilton, Barleet, Swimming Nymph, Bend Back, Model Perfect, Keel, and Kink-shank.

There are at least seven types of eyes. Better dry flies are typically made with a tapered eye where the eye gradually thins as it bends back on the shank. This makes it lighter.

Hooks come in a variety of sizes from 32 to 0/19. Size 32 is the smallest and size increases from there. The numbering system changes at a size of 1 where it switches to the ‘aught’ system going from 0/1 to 0/19 which is the largest.

Because there are many dimensions to a hook from shank length to bend to gape there is no uniform measurement system. It can only be said that a size 32 is smaller than a size 31 etcetera. A fly fisherman can only get a sense of fly sizes by using them and visually judging them.

The best hooks have ground points that are carefully controlled to create a sharp point that will stay sharp. A point the starts sharp but is too thin will dull rapidly.

The most important aspect of picking a fly vendor is to know that the hook comes from a quality vendor that uses good high carbon steel, coats the hook for corrosion resistance and grinds the hook for lasting sharpness. There are many far east manufacturers for cheap hooks and discount flies. Before you decide to save a dollar make sure you are getting the quality fly your expensive fishing excursion deserves!

by Mark Waldin www.flycatcherinc.com The stripper or stripping guide is the first guide encountered on the rod when working up from the grip. So called because this is the guide that is worked the hardest when you are stripping line in or (even more so) when a fish is stripping line off your reel.

The stripper is usually different from the other guides on the rod because of the work it has to do. When a fish is on the run it is pulling line from your rod at a high rate of speed. A large portion of the tension on your bent rod is being born by the stripper and the tip top (more on that later). Fly line moving rapidly across the guide while under high tension equates to friction and friction equates to drag, wear and heat.

These three demons cause scoring of the guide, heat damage, and line wear. The best way to combat these problems is by making the stripper out of a material that dissipates heat well, is extremely hard, and has very little friction (a low drag coefficient). Paying attention to the stripper guide on your rod will not only give you a better fishing experience but it will protect your expensive investment in fly fishing line!

This is why strippers are almost always made of a metal (stainless, chromed stainless, or titanium) cage with a ceramic insert in the shape of a ring. Ceramics are extremely hard and have low drag. They are however brittle. A good stripper does a good job of protecting the ceramic ring and securing it in the cage. There are various techniques for this such as adding a polymer shock absorber. Suffice it to say that it is important to get a quality stripping guide from a reputable supplier if you are to not have breakage problems over time.

A stripper cage is almost always made of stainless or chrome plated stainless. It is a metal that does not corrode and is very strong. The most expensive strippers use a titanium frame. Titanium is equally strong and has the added advantage of being 50% lighter.

Most ceramic rings are made of Aluminum Oxide which is an excellent material when properly polished to a smooth surface. The best rings are diamond polished. Fuji offers a special formula aluminum oxide ring called Hardloy&tm; which is lighter and has greater heat dissipation characteristics than other aluminum oxide rings.

Fuji also offers advanced rings: Alconite&tm; and SiC. Alconite rings are 75% stronger, 10% harder, and 500% better at heat dissipation than aluminum oxide. Fuji’s top of the line SiC (silicon carbide) rings are 100% stronger, 20% lighter, 90% harder, and 700% better at heat dissipation than aluminum oxide rings.

Some rod builders use two stripper guides on the rod with the first guide being larger and the second guide tapering down to a smaller size. Such an approach that started as a marketing ploy to differentiate the rods from competitor offerings and suffers the additional disadvantage of increased weight on the rod. The major advantage of using additional ceramic ring guides is to reduce line drag caused by the guides and increase casting distance. If this is the goal, however, ALL the guides on the rod should be ceramic ring guides. For my money, I would put the dollars into a better stripper guide than put on two guides.

by Mark Waldin www.flycatcherinc.com A few articles back I gave some advice on fly rod backing knots. A great knot to use for this is the bimini twist. In this article I explain how to tie a bimini twist.

Hold the backing in your hands like you are going to make a cat’s cradle. Have the standing line below and the tag end above with the tag end in your left hand.

Twist your right hand in a circle so that you make twists in the line. Make a total of 20 full turns:

Put the loop end around a large (4+” diameter object/post; your knee will work):

Pull on both the tag end and the standing end to tight up the wrap:

Move your hand down (the one holding the tag end) so that it is beyond 90 degrees to the wrap. Keep the standing end pulled out straight:

Loosen your right hand (with the tag end). The line will want to twist and the tag end will walk itself back up onto the initial wrap making another layer of wrap. Guide the tag end so that it makes a nice uniform second layer of wrap over the first:

Once the second wrap reaches the Y stop wrapping. Make a half hitch around one of the legs of the line and pull it to:

The knot will stay built at this point. Make a long half hitch around both legs of the loop. Back wrap both legs with 6 or more wraps. Then drop the tag end between the two legs:

Tigthen the wraps. To do this it is necessary to hold the loop end taut. Loop it over a door knob or other object. Pull the tag end while holding the standing line. Tease the wrapping to keep it from balling up. Finish by pulling tightly on the tag end. Clip the tag end off.

by Mark Waldin www.flycatcherinc.com I don’t know about you but if I buy a new car I don’t want blemishes in the paint and I want the hood to align with the fender in a nice tight solid fit. None of these things is going to affect how quickly the car accelerates or how many miles per gallon it gets but it does reflect on craftsmanship and the care with which the car was built. The same can be said for almost any product including a fine fly fishing rod.

So you can imagine my surprise when I received a fly rod blank from (I won’t name them) a well respected manufacturer and it was pre-marked with alignment dots for each rod section. I could only assume they had already found and marked the spine on the rod. Not so, they had IGNORED the spine. Unfortunately, in cutting corners it appears that most fly rod manufacturers are claiming that their rods are so perfect that the spine can be ignored. My experience building fly rods and measuring spine suggests otherwise. And besides if I can’t get the fit and finish I think I deserve on an expensive fly rod what am I paying for? And just how many other hidden short cuts are in that rod?

I don’t know about you but I expect attention to detail to accompany my fly rod purchase.

by Mark Waldin www.flycatcherinc.com Choosing the right knot for your tippet to hook can mean the difference between hooking and landing a fish. The right knot will make the fly behave more life like and be strong enough not to break. No single knot is going to give you consistent results across all tippet sizes and fishing conditions.

If you are looking for a free swinging fly to tippet junction use a non-slip mono loop. Loop connections will allow the fly to swing freely.  It is also independent of the hook size.  This knot is made by tying a half knot feeding the tag end back through the half knot to form a loop, wrapping the tag end around the standing line for a recommended number of turns, and feeding the tag end back through the half knot.

For a tight knot on a 3X or lighter tippet use a 16-20 knot.  The 16-20 is similar to the clinch knot but the tag end of the line is folded over and wrapped back toward the hook and then fed back through the first loop furthest away from the hook.

For a heavy tippet use a trilene knot.   The trilene knot is a simple variation on a clinch knot where the line is fed through the hook eye twice before wrapping and the tag end is then fed back through the the first twist AND the loop formed by feeding the line through the hook twice.

You can find instructions for tying the 16-20 or non-slip mono at www.froghairfishing.com The trilene knot can be found at www.fish4fun.com

Classic fly line guides are snake guides.  Snake guides are named as such because of the snake-like curl the guide has.  It is in short a spiral shaped guide with a foot (the point at which the guides is bound to the rod) at each end.  The spiral can rotate clockwise or counter clockwise.   A counter clockwise spiral is called an English snkae guide while a clockwise spiral is referred to as an American snake guide.   Either one works equally efficiently but as the name implies, fly rods found in the United States will undoubtedly have American snake guides.   Snake guides are almost always made of chromed stainless steel.

Chrome american style snake guide

An improvement on the snake guides are single foot guides.   These guides are also made of chromed stainless but instead of a spiral and two feet, these guides form a loop and have a single foot. This provides two advantages: lighter weight and less drag. Less weight because the total length of steel wire is shorter, up to 30% lighter, and less drag because the surface area between the line and the guide is less, up to 25% less. Less drag means longer casts.   Lighter weight means more of the rod energy is transferred to the line rather than the guide, also resulting in longer casts.

A further improvement on the line guides is carbide coated single foot guides.  Hopkins and Holloway brand their carbide coated single foot guides, DLC, for diamond-like carbide.   DLC guides are 60% harder and have less drag than chromed stainless guides.   The result is even longer casts and less wear and scoring that reduce performance over time and wear out fly line.

Single foot carbide coated guide

by Mark Waldin www.flycatcherinc.com Most fly fishermen choose an up locking reel seat when building a fly rod.  The hood of an up locking reel seat fits up into the cork grip.  If you use an uplocking reel seat you are going to have to counter sink the fly rod grip to accommodate it.  Most cork grips will be cored to 1/4 inch or 3/8 inch from the manufacturer.  The quickest way to countersink your grip is to use a hole saw and a drill.

Measure the diameter of the reel seat hood and select a hole saw 1/8 inch smaller.  By staying a bit smaller than the desired hole you can compensate for the fact that the hole saw will cut a relatively rough hole.

Measure the depth of the hood and wrap a piece of masking tape around the hole saw to mark the depth you want to cut.  Wrap masking tape around the drill bit in the hole saw so that the drill bit just slides snuggly into the existing bore in the fly rod grip.  This will keep the hole saw running true and keep the hole centered on the grip.

Sit on a chair and brace the drill between your legs or clamp drill into a vise.  With one hand turn the drill on to full speed.  With the other hand, guide the fly rod grip onto the drill bit and into the hole saw.  Run the hole saw down to the masking tape you put on earlier.

You will be left with a cork core that needs to be removed.  This can be chipped out by hand.  A good way to do it quickly is to use drill cutting bit 1/8 inch smaller than the hole saw (for example, for a 3/4 inch reel seat hood, use a 5/8 inch hole saw and 1/2 inch cutting bit).  Carefully drill out the core with this bit.

Wrap a piece of medium coarse sand paper around a 1/2 inch dowel and sand out the hole the remaining 1/8 inch so that the reel seat slides in snuggly without stretching the cork.

by Mark Waldin www.flycatcherinc.com The clinch knot is an almost ubiquitous method for making your fly to tippet connection. Some fly fishermen use an improved clinch knot.  Neither of these knots is usually the best knot to use from a performance standpoint.  In tests of the improved clinch knot (see Art Scheck, ‘Fly Fish Better’) it did not outperform the regular clinch knot and both knots reduced the strength of the line by more than 19%.  That said, these knots are easy to tie and are misers when it comes to tippet consumption which is undoubtedly why they are so popular.

One of the nice things about the clinch knot is that it tends to tighten up well even in very heavy line. For this reason and because reduced strength in a heavy line is not so much a concern, the clinch knot can be a good choice in this fly fishing situation.

If you are going to use one of these fishing knots be sure that the knot is made wet with saliva or water prior to pulling it tight. The knot will lose significant strength when pulled to dry. Use seven turns on your knot. Seven turns is stronger than six which is stronger than five.

Be cautious about using the clinch knot when the tippet is light and the hook is heavy. A clinch knot will not tighten properly when the ratio is too high. A good rule of thumb is to never use a clinch knot when the ratio of tippet to hook size exceeds 2:1 That is to say, don’t go over a 4x tippet on a fly hook larger than 8.

by Mark Waldin www.flycatcherinc.com Ever want to change out that weight forward line for a shooting taper, or go from a floating line to a sinking line? Ever consider the best rigging to do this efficiently and with a solid connection? Here is one of the best set ups.

The best way to do this of course is to have a loop to loop connection.  For your fly line you want to bend the line back on itself so you have a 1 to 2 inch loop. Use a 10 lb test monofilament and tie a six or seven wrap nail knot around both legs of the loop. Tie a second nail not just beyond the first knot.

For the backing side of the rigging you are probably already set. But if you need to add a loop on the backing, using a bimini twist. Make the loop about 14 inches in length or at least long enough to make one wrap on the reel. The bimini twist is a nice thin knot that is very strong.

by Mark Waldin www.flycatcherinc.com Some experts may tell you that many fly fishermen false cast too much. A reasonably good fly fisherman should be able to pick up 30 feet of line,  go through one false casting cycle and drop the fly fifty feet on target. That is indeed true, but is it the best thing to do?

If you are one of these fishermen, you might want to consider adding an additional false cast cycle or two to your routine when you are dry fly fishing. The added benefit of the false cast is that is shakes water off the fly and the action through the air helps to dry the fly. Blow drying the fly in this way can add more casts before you have to reel in and dry the fly.