For many years, I never much considered casting dry flies on a Mono Rig as a viable option. I enjoyed the art of casting a dry with a traditional fly line. And if you asked me about dries on a long leader system back then, I’d shake my head and tell you something about using the right tool for the job. But in the last few years, much of that has changed. And now, I suggest that a long Mono Rig is, in fact, the right tool for the job — sometimes.

By no surprise, dry fly drifts are dramatically improved with a Mono Rig. Substituting traditional fly line with a long leader eliminates much of the sag and resulting drag caused by the weight of a fly line. Of course, that same weight, built into the fly line, is what aids in the casting of our unweighted, bushy dries with built-in air resistance. And while the Mono Rig is excellent in many circumstances — small to medium dries fished within about thirty feet — there is no substitute for the good work that a fly line can do, pushing larger flies around and casting at distance.

There’s a time and place for everything. And fishing dry flies on the Mono Rig has become one of my favorite ways to approach trout, not just because it’s a convenient and quick variation when swapping over from a tight line nymphing rig, but because it is stunningly effective.

The Rig

Here’s the Mono Rig adjusted for a dry fly:

24 feet — 20 lb Maxima Chameleon
2 feet —12 lb Maxima HV
12” — 12lb Red Amnesia or 12 lb Sufix Neon Fire
12” — 10lb Gold Stren (Backing Barrel with tag, attached here)
— Tippet Ring (1.5 or 2mm) —
10 inches — 2X nylon tippet 
6 inches — 3X nylon tippet
20-30 inches — 4X, 5X, or 6x nylon tippet

Let’s not complicate this. There are nearly fifty articles about the Mono Rig here on Troutbitten. So what I’ll write next is predicated on the assumption that you already have a good grasp of the long leader tactics.

READ: Troutbitten | The Mono Rig

Fall is here.

In short, the Mono Rig is a hybrid system for fishing all fly types: nymphs (tight line and indicator) streamers, wets, dry dropper, and yes even dry flies on a long leader. How long? Long enough to keep fly line out of the guides. Importantly, the Mono Rig is designed to cast with fly-line-style performance, without the extra weight and the consequence of a fly line. And it requires good fly casting skill to get the most out of the Mono Rig. This is not lobbing.

In fact, casting dries with mono requires the most finesse of all the variations in this Mono Rig system. The leader simply will not function without solid casting fundamentals driving it to the target. Fast acceleration and crisp stops between the two points of ten-o-clock and two-o-clock are a good starting point.

The Mono Rig is built for versatility and function. This is not a leader limited to Euro nymphing. At the core of the Mono Rig is a butt section functioning as a substitute for fly line. And the choice of that butt section is super important when casting dries. The butt material is thick enough, with the necessary mass to push a dry fly to the target. Thinner butt sections collapse when asked to do this same job.

READ: Troutbitten | Ask an Expert | For Euro Nymphing or the Mono Rig, what leader material do you like for the butt section?

The key difference between casting nymphs vs casting dries is the absence of weight. While nymphing, the included weight helps deliver the line and the fly to the river. But once that weight is gone, the leader must do the job by itself. And it must push against the air resistance of the dry — hence the need for the proper butt section.

Notice that the Mono Rig base stays the same. The butt section and the transition remain unchanged across all the variations in the system. The changes happen only from the sighter down.

For comparison, here is the Mono Rig formula for nymphing:

24 feet — 20 lb Maxima Chameleon
2 feet —12 lb Maxima HV
12” — 12lb Red Amnesia or 12 lb Sufix Neon Fire
12” — 10lb Gold Stren (Backing Barrel with tag, attached here)
— Tippet Ring (1.5 or 2mm) —
14″ — 1x Rio Two Tone Tippet Material (Optional)
36″ — 4X Fluorocarbon Tippet
— Tag for upper nymph —
20″ — 5X Fluorocarbon Tippet
— Nymph —

Note that the rig above is designed for tight line nymphing. You can simply clip off the nymph and tie on a dry fly to the fluorocarbon tippet. You will  catch fish that way. I do it quite often. When I see just one or two rising trout, I might make the quick change, bang out a couple dozen casts, hopefully catch a couple trout and then go back to the nymphs.

But there’s an inherent problem with that approach — it’s the tippet. The length and diameter of the fluorocarbon I use for nymphing is not always well suited to delivering beautiful slack-drawn s-curves to the dry.

So when I find a good reason to switch to dries, I prefer to make a quick adjustment to the Mono Rig.

I snip the transition piece at the tippet ring (at the top of my sighter), and I wrap the flies, the tippet and the sighter on a Loon Rigging Foam. That’s just one clip and a few wraps. Later I can tie it all back on with one knot.

Then I unroll a pre-tied section of nylon, with a short taper and tippet section built for casting dries on the Mono Rig. I tie the 2X nylon to the tippet ring on the standard sighter, and I’m ready to fish dries on the Mono Rig.

(Here’s that tippet section again . . .)

10 inches — 2X nylon tippet 
6 inches — 3X nylon tippet
20-30 inches — 4X, 5X, or 6x nylon tippet

No Taper Necessary

The taper in the formula above may seem rudimentary. It is. Because any elaborate taper to the dry fly here is hardly necessary. In fact, a long taper makes casting more difficult.

In any leader, part of the taper’s job is to dissipate the power from the fly line. But remember, we don’t have an excess of power here. The Mono Rig can push and turn over dries up to about a #10 Parachute Adams, for example. But in that large size range, the dry fly itself, with significant air resistance, does plenty to dissipate the power of the long leader.

Understanding that previous point is the key to knowing how to adapt the tippet section to your fly. The formula above is merely a starting point. It is well suited to casting a #14 Parachute. If the fly is larger, a shorter section of 5X — or stepping up to 4X — may be in order. I generally leave the 2x section untouched, but I may shorten the 3X piece if turning over the dry is difficult.

You really could skip the 2X and 3X altogether. But I like the taper there to more smoothly transfer the curves and loops built into the cast and send them to the terminal tippet.

Does That Sighter Spook Trout?

In short, no.

For many years, I built a second tippet ring at the top of my standard sighter, for the sole purpose of swapping out everything and removing the sighter when I went to dry flies on the Mono Rig. Eventually, I learned that I missed the sighter too much. Without fly line as a reference, it’s difficult to see the how the leader lands on the water or where it is. The sighter on the water provides a reference for me, so I keep it in the formula.

In all but the clearest and flattest water, the sighter does not spook trout. However, I do not line the fish with the sighter either. As standard practice, I cast with angles that keep the sighter to the side of the trout that I’m targeting.

How does it fish?

Casting a dry without the punch of fly line behind it seems odd a first. It’s a different feeling. But given a few minutes to assimilate a new feel in the rod, the possibilities quickly reveal themselves. You can keep a lot of leader off the water after the delivery. What would be fly line drifting and dragging on the surface can now be held off the water. The leader that does ride on the surface drags considerably less than a fly line, simply because it’s a thinner diameter. And at short range, you can even go tight line the dry (think Tenkara).

The butt section of the Mono Rig unfolds very much like a fly line. The casting stroke remains the same (just keep it speedy). The Stop and Drop still applies for creating s-curves. Aerial mends and curve casts are still an option, though not quite as smoothly manipulated. Reach mends on the water are actually easier than with a fly line, because there’s not as much weight to lift and mend. (I usually grease part of the leader when I dress the fly.)

Also, a specialized rod is not necessary for casting dries with the Mono Rig. However, a rod with some finesse at the tip helps provide a little more feel to the cast. Basically, if you like the rod for tight line nymphing, you should like it for casting dries on the Mono Rig too.

Where and Why?

I first used the Mono Rig for dries as a quick-change solution, just to get a few casts in without swapping over to a Harvey dry leader. Then I found myself spending many hours with the mono because it put fish in the net. Now it’s become another core variation to the Mono Rig. And in a way, it completes the system.

Does it replace my favorite George Harvey leader? No. The Mono Rig doesn’t cast dries very well past thirty feet. It won’t cast bushy flies, and it’s hell in heavy wind.

But while the application may be limited, the benefits are significant. Put simply, the Mono Rig incurs far less drag on the water’s surface. And as every dry fly fisher understands, that’s a very, very big deal.

Fish hard, friends.

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Enjoy the day
Domenick Swentosky
T R O U T B I T T E N
domenick@troutbitten.com