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Effectively Fishing Stillwater Wet Flies and Nymphs Copyright © 2010 Michael Gorman Reproduction of the text or photos are allowed only by the expressed permission of the author. Though I enjoy trolling, and this method can be extremely effective, once the fish are located, I prefer to cast the flies to my quarry. It is being more actively involved as I fish, my personal preference. An additional benefit of casting while riding low to the water in a float tube or small pontoon boat is that my casting technique improves. Sitting low forces me to keep my back cast elevated as the line travels behind me. Slapping the water to my rear can slow or kill the momentum in the line. If the mechanics of the back cast crumble, the forward cast that follows can be not only pathetic, but embarrassing, too. You might remember poor Biff, the one trick pony. Besides fine-tuning my casting stroke, I create less disturbance in the zone to which I am casting. I am not kicking by craft over and through my fishing water when I am casting from a fixed station. One more plus: I can fan my casts out in any direction quickly, enabling me to probe more water in a specific area much faster than I can troll through it thoroughly.
Typically, I will have three fly rods with me on the lake, each with a different type of fly line. If the fish are sitting in shallow water, or begin to rise, I will choose to use a floating line for casting wet flies and nymphs. Because the floating line sits on the water’s surface, it is easy to pick up and cast, and I may be able to do so without retrieving any line before I do so. Another big benefit of using a brightly colored floater is that it may indicate a soft strike, one so subtle that I would not feel it. Experience has taught me to closely watch the end of my hi-vis fly line as I retrieve it. In between the pulls on the fly line as the fly is retrieved, the line forms little horizontal “S” waves as it hesitates. A strike may very well happen when the fly is at rest, and line is not tight. If I see the slightest straightening of the distant “S” in the line, the rod tip is lifted immediately to set the hook. Unless an angler knows this and looks for it, he will never have an inkling that a fish had momentarily intercepted his fly. From interception to release of the fly can span less than a second.
It was another bluebird June day on central Oregon’s Crane Prairie
Reservoir. Damselfly nymphs were everywhere, many swam to my float tube where
they crawled from the water to seek a likely place to dry themselves just prior
to the adult form slowly emerging from its nymphal skin. It was not hard to
guess at what fly to use. I usually fish two flies in tandem, but I didn’t that
afternoon. There is always a chance a big rainbow will find a submerged log, of
which there were plenty, on which to entangle a second fly dangling free behind
the frantic fish. A second fly in six feet of water filled with old wood is an
invitation to heartbreak.
Because the water was shallow, I used my bright yellow floating line with a nine-foot 4X leader. I was casting my favorite Goat Damsel nymph. It is a skinny little creation that looks like nothing special to me, but the Cranebows think differently. Experience told me I was in a good location, near a submerged old stream channel. Crane Prairie was formed in 1922 when a timbered meadow was flooded by the damming of the Deschutes River. With an average depth of only about six feet over its five square mile expanse in an average year, sunlight penetrates every portion of the lake to produce vegetation that enables the production of an extreme abundance of trout food organisms. As the water warms in the shallow impoundment, the fish tend to congregate in the deeper reaches of old stream channels for comfort. Find the channels, find the fish. Having landed a few fish soon after I had begun, life was good, the day already a success. Before making a particular cast, I was chatting up one of my fishing companions for the day. In spite of the pleasant interchange, I stayed focused enough to watch my line and fly settle on the water. My strategy, once the fly landed, was to wait fifteen or twenty seconds for the damselfly to sink, and then begin my retrieve. As I waited and bantered, I thought I saw the little curve at the end of my yellow fly line straighten out ever so slightly. At forty feet away, it could definitely be my imagination, but . . . As I tell my guided clients and angling friends, there are no penalty points for setting the hook. If nothing is there when you set the hook, so what? As I lifted the rod tip to tighten my line, I felt the familiar throbbing resistance of a strong fish! It had intercepted the Goat as it slowly sank, with no retrieving movement on my part. After a valiant battle, I gently pinned the big trout against my float tube for an admiring look, and removed the barbless hook from its jaw. As it turned out, this seven-pound beauty was the biggest fish of the day, a fish whose strike was so gentle it could have easily been ignored.
If there is a stiff breeze across the lake, it can definitely interfere with the retrieve and strike detection when you are using a floating line. The surface currents generated by the wind can blow the floating line into a large curve, adding additional speed to the fly you might not want. Additionally, the curve in the line puts you out of straight-line contact with the fly; there’s a chance you will not detect the strike, or if you do, it may be too late to set the hook. And, when you raise the rod tip to set the hook, the curving lay of your line may prevent the angler from getting an adequately forceful set of the hook as you try to pull the line tight before the fish releases the fly.
When the wind thwarts my ability to effectively use a floating line
when I cast to fish in shallow water --- six feet, or less --- my slow sinking,
transparent stealth line is called into the game. It immediately settles below
the wind and surface currents as it slowly descends. Because it sinks slowly,
the line does not immediately take my flies to bottom where they may pick up
debris, or become entangled in the vegetation. Instead, there is a significant
amount of time to retrieve the flies before they finally tap bottom. Once they
do, it is time to strip them in to re-cast.
One thing to deal with as you prepare to fish a sow sinking, or intermediate, “transparent” or camouflage fly line is that they tend to kink and coil as they rest between fishing trips on your fly reel. No matter who manufactures the fly line --- and there is a handful --- they all tend to retain their springy coils. This requires that you stretch the line before it casts and shoots through the rod guides, as it should. Even more importantly, if the line is kinked and coiled as you fish it, you may not detect strikes, as you should. The coils can absorb the strike without fully tightening the line to relay the bite to the angler. Stretch that line. If the lake I have selected for the day is deeper than six to seven feet where I want to fish it, and there are no rising fish feeding near the surface, I will usually start with my clear, slow sinking line. If it’s breezy, this makes my line choice easy. I take up a stationary casting position in an area that has produced for me previously, or one that has “the look”. This could be a little cove or bay, mouth of an inlet stream, a rocky point, or the edge of submerged or exposed vegetation. If I can locate a portion of the lake protected from the wind, so much the better. While I may seek protection from the wind, a little breeze is always desirable on stillwaters. The fish are less wary with a riffles surface that obscures their vision a bit, and the vision of a would-be predator. My kicking and casting activities are not as noticeable. Neither is the splashy landing of my fly line. When the day is windless, the surface unruffled, and the sky bright, fishing can be tough. A little breeze is your friend.
Most of the time in stillwaters I am fishing two flies on my leader. (Make sure multiple fly set-ups are legal on the waters you fish.) Typically, I separate the flies by about thirty inches. If I am fishing two flies of different sizes, the bigger fly is tied as my dropper, with the smaller pattern as my terminal, or point fly. The dropper fly dangles two to four inches off my leader on a short spur of tippet. The spur of dropper to which the dropper fly is tied is created by cutting off the lowest 30” of the fine end of a tapered leader. I then rejoin the two sections I have just clipped with a Double Surgeon’s knot. As a result, two short tag ends of line are created, which would normally be trimmed close at the knot. Instead of trimming both tags, leave the one that is an extension of the upper, thicker portion of the leader. If you do a little planning as the knot is created, this untrimmed tag end should be about 4” long, plenty of length to tie on the dropper fly. (Sketch of leader with dropper to be inserted) There are good choices of knots to secure the dropper fly to the line. However, I use only one: the Clinch knot. Many are familiar with the Improved Clinch knot, but I choose the unimproved, simpler version because I can untie this knot by gripping it with the fingernails of my thumb and middle finger, and pulling the knot away from the hook eye. After pulling this little section of now-curled line straighter by grasping the end with a forceps and the knot with my fingers, and pulling firmly, I can now tie on a different fly while preserving the length of my dropper line. Should you choose not to unravel the knot when changing dropper flies, then you must cut the line again to rejoin the tippet and leader with a new Surgeon knot, creating a new dropper spur. (Photos of unraveling dropper line spur AND straightening the line with forceps and finger to be inserted) I much prefer this tying my last 30” of tippet to the bend of the hook of the dropper. This latter set-up easy and fast to assemble, but it is my firm belief that significantly fewer fish will be hooked and landed on the upper fly using this scheme. Because there is no separation between the dropper fly and the leader, a fish that attempts to follow or intercept the fly from the rear will run its nose against the line. Two things may happen, both bad. First, the fish will be startled and retreat when its nose touches the leader as it nears the fly. Secondly, as the nose of the fish touches the line it will, in turn, push the fly away even as it attempts to grab it. The trap in using this method of securing the dropper fly to the leader is that an angler may land a few fish on the upper fly and think that the set-up is effective. However, with the set-up I prefer, with the dropper fly separated and dangling below the leader, maybe the same angler would have landed a dozen fish instead of a couple! (Sketch of fish “nosing the line” of lazy man dropper set up to be inserted)
After your cast hits the water, what you do next can be critical to your success. Whereas the natural tendency is to start moving the fly through water to tempt a fish, be patient. Let the fly sink a bit. Remember the man in the baby blue pontoon boat. Your chances of getting a fish’s attention are enhanced if you allow the fly to descend into the zone where the fish is cruising or feeding. It does not matter how enticing your flies and effective your retrieve if the fish are not seeing them. I use a countdown during the descent of my flies before I impart any pulling movement to them. After my cast, I count to five, then, start my retrieve. I do this several times, varying the direction of the casts, fanning them around the specific area I hope the fish might be. If nothing happens, I will make another series of casts, counting to ten before I retrieve. I increase the countdown and waiting time until I get a strike or my flies start hooking the vegetation or debris on the bottom.
As for the specific retrieve of the flies, there is a vast
combination of choices. At the extremes, I can pull the line an inch at time,
or several My initial choice in a retrieve of my wet flies or nymphs as my stillwater fishing day begins is usually composed of short medium-quick strips of the line interspersed with a couple of slower medium length strips and pauses. So, here’s how it might go: shot strip - short strip – short strip, pause – two – three – four, slower medium strip – slower medium strip, pause-two – three – four, (repeat from the beginning) short strip – short strip . . . Before I change this retrieve, I will fan out a dozen different casts, varying only the countdown of the flies as they sink, before I start the retrieve.
If I find no success during my initial attempts, I may then go next
to a slow hand-twist retrieve, mixed with a couple of slow, medium-length strips
of the line. The hand-twist is accomplished by grasping the fly line with the
thumb and first finger. Next, the other three fingers push the line toward the
angler, rolling underneath the hand. The thumb and first finger release their
hold to grasp the line again to start retrieving more line, as the three fingers
roll underneath the hand to pull in another few inches of line. So, I begin
with four slow hand-twist retrieves of the line, followed by pause – two – three
– four, followed by two or three slow, medium-long pulls of the line. I repeat
this routine until the line is fully retrieved. If no strike, I cast in a
slightly different direction, countdown, and then use the same retrieve. I do
this for a dozen casts. If a strike should come, I note exactly what I was
doing, or not doing, during that particular part of the retrieve. This will be
my High Alert moment when I repeat it on the following casts. Remembering my Lenice Lake uber high speed retrieve that was oddly successful, somewhere in my fishing day I strip the line fast, short strips, long strips, and in between. If the strike count is low, the number of experimental retrieves of the flies should be high. An angler may actually have used the particular retrieve that the fish desire, but gotten no strikes. It could be that the flies were wrong, or the area being fished had few or no fish. Knowing this, a sharp fisherman will repeat his favored retrieves in different areas of the lake. Still no action? Time to change flies. If you catch a fool, and it is at least ten inches long, pump its stomach without fail. Knowledge of aquatic organisms, specifically how they swim or propel themselves through the water, can add to the development of the retrieves in which you attempt to mimic real life movements of living trout foods. The nymphs of the dragonfly, damselfly, and callibeatis mayfly, for instance, have distinctive swimming strokes. When you become familiar with these movements, you can become more effective when specifically fishing imitations of these insects if you can duplicate how the fish see them propel themselves as you manipulate your fly line and rod tip. (Photo of hand-twist retrieve to be inserted)
There is one portion of the retrieve that can be effective but overlooked. This is during the lift of the rod tip to clear the line from the water for the next cast. There are occasions in which an interested fish is tracking the fly closely as it moves horizontally toward the angler, but refuses to take it. However, once the line is short to the point the angler would lift it free of the water to cast, and the fly responds to the lift, moving vertically, this may act as a trigger for the following fish. If the line is lifted quickly, the fly may be pulled away from the fish before it can grab it. On the other hand, if the fly is lifted a bit slower, you may be pleasantly surprised by a tugging resistance. If I get strikes consistently during the rod lift, I may incorporate this lift much earlier and throughout my retrieve. For instance, after I have made a cast and “counted it down”, I may start my retrieve by merely lifting my rod tip high. Assuming there is no strike, I drop the rod tip and strip in the slack line I have created by the lift. After letting the fly sink again, I list the rod tip a second time, repeating the procedures until the flies are near me, and I must cast again. At any time in the retrieval process, I may strip the fly for a distance before adding the rod lift. Here again, an endless combination of retrieves is possible. Just make sure you take note of what the fly was doing when the strike comes. Then, repeat it until it no longer induces strikes. As I experiment with trying to discover the magic retrieve for the day, or the hour, I must remind myself to slow down. When the bite is slow, and when the bite is fast, the tendency for anglers is to pull the fly through the water too quickly. When the fish are striking only occasionally, or not at all, we can get anxious and frustrated. The result is to hurriedly cast and strip the flies in an attempt to find the effective flies and retrieves that appeal to the fish as soon as possible. In these times, catch yourself. Calm down and slow down. Sometimes the best retrieve is no retrieve. I wish I had a dime for every time I have made a cast, then laid my rod on my tube in order free both hands to take a photo, only to watch my rod tip quiver and dip with a fish that picked up my fly as it sank, or had it picked up off the bottom.
My cousin John and I were on Edith Lake, British Columbia, for the first time, late spring 2010. My fish electronic fish locator / depth finder secured on the side of my pontoon boat told me there were definitely fish in our vicinity. However, through the first few hours of fishing, I had managed only a few fish, and I was unable to discover any fly or technique that worked consistently. I watched other anglers on the lake, and spoke to few, trying to glean any clues. Most had not landed a single fish, even those Canadians who lived near Edith and fished it regularly. Even though my fish- landed number was small --- three --- my observations and conversations put me at the top of the leader board. My floating travels eventually took me back to the distant shallow end of the lake where we had launched our boats late morning. I watched as late arrivals launched their watercraft. I never know what I might hear or see as I try to assemble the puzzle pieces for successfully getting the fish to bite. Soon, I saw the angler in the car top boat who launched and quickly anchored along a deep channel running parallel to the nearby run of shoreline. This guy knew exactly where he wanted to be, and what he wanted to do. The fact that he was a good caster also confirmed he was a man of experience. These all confirmed that I needed to watch this man fish.
After making his first cast, the one thing that caught my attention
was his retrieve: short, quick strips. He never varied it. He was definitely
not imitating the very slow movement of a chironomid pupa. This was the
twitchy travels of a scud that I knew to be abundant in the lake. However,
because the stomach samples of the fish I had caught earlier contained nothing
but chironomids, I ignored using a scud imitation. As I reviewed where I had
caught my fish, it took only a couple of seconds to recall that they had been
caught at the far end of the lake opposite from where I was now. El stupido!
Unable to catch my chironomid–eating fish with a chironomid fly, I had actually landed them on a #12 Bead head Prince Nymph. I was still fishing the same as I watched the angler and his scud retrieve. And, even though I did not observe the scud angler hook a fish, I adopted his retrieve. Soon after quick-twitching my Wooly Bugger / Prince combo, I got a strike. Had the door been unlocked? Another few casts doing the same, I landed a good rainbow on the Prince. Ironically, though my luck had turned for the better, my “mentor” who had offered me the retrieving clue did not land a fish before he soon departed for a different location and a different method elsewhere on the lake. With my stomach pump, I stole from the fish all that it had recently eaten. Though chironomid larvae were present, the majority of what my fish had eaten was scuds, in assorted shades of gold and olive. So, indeed, fish at the other end of the lake were focused on chironomid pupae, while the fish at this end were chowing down on scuds. I was proudly feeling a little like Sherlock Holmes. If the Prince was getting me some fish-biting action, it only made sense that a scud fly fished with a scud retrieve would enhance my possibilities. So, I traded my Prince for a scud, high on optimism that non-stop action would soon follow. However, several different scud pattern changes later, I had only tallied one halfhearted strike, no landed fish. As a little consolation, no one I could see in my portion of the lake had landed a fish. Reluctantly, I went back to my original dance partner, replacing the scud with the Prince. Roaming far and wide during my last hour on the lake, I got numerous strikes and managed to land two more rainbow trout on Edith Lake, all came on the Prince twitched like a scud. Go figure. My final count of six fish landed was three more than any fisherman I talked to or heard about that day. Interestingly, part of my success was due to an angler who may not have landed a single fish that day.
On another springtime sojourn to eastern Washington, I fished Nunally Lake for a day. It is located not too far from Lenice Lake, a short drive southeast of the town of Vantage, and south of George, Washington. (No, I’m not kidding.) Because of its near proximity to the popular and productive Lenice, for years I ignored Nunally. Having heard good reports from other anglers, Dan Reynolds and I dragged our pontoon boats across the desert from our parked truck a good fraction of a mile to the lake. After launching, our strategy involved trolling the shoreline until we got a strike or two. Once a hotspot was located, we would sit stationary to cast and retrieve. We caught a few fish on assorted leech patterns, but the action was sporadic. When Dan and I differed on where we wanted to be on the lake, he charted his own path, and me mine. In my solo travels, I soon encountered another angler who shared with me that he had some success on a black leech of his own design. After a little more chat, he traveled off in pursuit while I lingered in an area I had just gotten a strike. Shortly, I landed a fish of about fourteen inches. Pumping its stomach, the contents revealed an abundance of emerald green chironomid pupae. This fish was being highly selective for only one food item, but in a foolish moment it had, apparently, deviated from its preference to eat my Midnight Wooly Bugger. Therefore, of course, I did the logical thing, and changed flies immediately. I cut off the Bugger, changed to a lighter tippet, and began to fish an emerald green chironomid pupa. Even though I used a variety of presentations and both a sinking and floating fly line, my best efforts with the fly that very closely approximated the preferred food produced no strikes. Once I resumed fishing my Midnight leech with a quick, short twitch on a sinking line, I was back in the money. The fishing was not fast, but it was consistent. More stomach samples revealed the same green midge pupa, no leeches.
An explanation? My best guess is that the trout had fed upon the
hatching chironomid pupa for as long as the hatch lasted and the pupae were
readily available. Once the emergence had ended --- before I arrived --- the
fish sought out other food sources, and ignored the artificial imitations of the
pupae that had ceased emerging. Though the stomach pump is invaluable, it is
not a one hundred per cent predictor of what is guaranteed to work when it comes
to fly selection.
Many years ago, my friend Matt Ramsey was fishing Crane Prairie Reservoir with two friends. The damselflies were active, which always warms the core of any lake angler. Damselfly nymphs seem to be swimming candy. Fish love them! Matt and his two companions had fair to good fishing, as they casted and retrieved damsel imitations. However, some time during their fishing they deviated from their casting and retrieving ways, to suspending a damsel pattern underneath a floating indicator, and had good fishing results. For years prior to this event, matt and I had become quite familiar and effective at suspending chironomid larvae and pupae under an indicator, but not a fly whose living counterparts are such capable and active swimmers. Though the damselfly nymph does pause in between their spurts of swimming, it is only a few seconds before they resume their lateral wiggling swimming movement. Why would the fish be interested in the suspension of a damsel pattern under an indicator, imparting only occasional and slight movement of the fly? Even after Matt’s report of great success that day, I never tried this technique with any flies except midge pupae and larvae, which may wriggle in the real world, but are lousy swimmers. In retrospect, I am at a loss as I wonder why I never tried this. It was an “outside the box” method for flies other than chironomids. It wasn’t until I started reading about lake fishing techniques used in British Columbia waters, that my memories of Matt’s damselfly fishing exploits on Crane Prairie were awakened anew.
As I read numerous Canadian
fishing reports and blogs, I
occasionally read a story about suspending non-chironomid flies underneath a
small floating indicator. One of the more popular patterns mentioned was the
Micro Leech. Yeow! Here we have an organism --- the ubiquitous-in-most-stillwaters
leech --- with excellent sw On my very next stillwater expedition to a nearby pond, I tied on a black Micro Leech I had recently created at my fly-tying vise, suspended it about three feet under a pea-size strike indicator. Bowing to my conventional wisdom, I paired it with a chironomid pupa on the point, a couple of feet below the little leech pattern. Initially, I considered the ten fish I caught on the suspended Micro Leech in the next couple of hours to be suicidal misfits who would have eaten a paperclip or a shirt button threaded on a hook. I caught fish on the pupa, too, and accorded them much more respect than I did the Micro Leech eaters. I replaced the black model with claret Micro Leech. The trout liked it, too. Hmmmm. Could there be something to this? On subsequent outings to this same location again, and another pond, the suspended Micro Leech in any color I tried, including brown and olive versions, caught fish. A few weeks after my initial trials with my new friend the Micro Leech, my wife Marcy and I had our annual rendezvous with my sister Joann, her husband, Steve, and son Mark at a little desert lake we fish in the spring. Though we all caught fish on a broad variety of flies and methods that weekend, the Micro Leech fished with little or no movement under an indicator was one of the All Star patterns of the event. Needless to say, this fly (and others, like the damselfly nymph) dangling below a strike indicator fished with a floating fly line, is a proven method for me, worthy of trying when others are not producing fishing action. However, like any other technique, there is no guarantee the indicator and suspended fly will catch fish on any given day. It is merely one more possibility in a successful fly angler’s arsenal.
Casting and retrieving wet flies and nymphs in lakes and ponds can produce great fishing memories, even when only a few fish are brought to net. Most days, piecing the puzzle pieces correctly together --- flies, location, depth, and retrieve --- requires persistence and resourcefulness. The opportunities to learn the most come on days the fish challenge you to discover what it takes to catch them. Those who embrace and enjoy such challenges will be the consistent winners, while others go home to watch TV, content to watch fishing show hosts and their guests catch big fish with ease. Copyright © 2010 Michael Gorman Reproduction of the text or photos are allowed only by the expressed permission of the author.
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feet on a single pull. As for speed, I can creep the fly, barely
moving it, or I can rip it through the water as fast as humanly possible.
Between these extremes of travel distance and speed of the fly, there is a very
broad middle ground. The possible combinations are virtually envious,
especially if pauses of varying durations are added to the mix. If these are
not enough, on any one cast, I can change to multiple retrieves as the fly is
brought back to me. So, where should you start?
imming
capabilities, suspended in the water column with very little movement compared
to the activity of the real creature. Eventually, I focused specifically
on searching specific references to fishing the Micro Leech. At least in
the references I found, the Micro Leech was always discussed with the same
presentation: suspended under an indicator.