Comments on: PODCAST: Critical Nymphing Concepts #7 — Animating the Nymph — S10, Ep7

By: Domenick Swentosky

Domenick Swentosky — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 14:40:44 +0000

Right on.

By: Toney Sisk

Toney Sisk — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 01:59:18 +0000

Nice Podcast! I’ve often wondered if Vladi’s strategy of speeding up the nymph served to both animate the nymph and to realign it to a proper drift. In other words, I know that often my drifts are way too slow, causing the nymph to pass under the rod tip way too early. Speeding leading the nymph would then serve to get everything properly lined up again. And if the nymph actually didn’t need realigning, well then, it would just get sped up and atrack some attention. So win win. Cheers! Toney

By: Domenick Swentosky

Domenick Swentosky — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 00:32:41 +0000

In reply to Matthew Wilson.

Cheers.

By: Matthew Wilson

Matthew Wilson — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 20:37:53 +0000

Come home we miss you. If you guys get delayed on your flight back and end up stuck in ATL let me know. I can take you to a few cool mountain streams. It’s wet wading season here already.

By: John Holler

John Holler — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 20:05:16 +0000

Banging on your rod handle to create movement = the “Swentosky Slap”

You’re welcome

By: John Mathews

John Mathews — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 01:33:31 +0000

I’ve got some theories on adding movement. Like Dom, I like to use the line to add movement to a fly, but will occasionally give the rod a tap or a little wiggle.

My reasoning for primarily using the line is due to the length of the rods we use, combined with my observations from gear fishing with soft plastics. Without seeing how much the fly is actually moving, it’s very hard to judge how far the fly moves when the rod does. Watching a soft plastic (which is easy to see in the water), you can see how far it moves through the water with just a small lift of the rod. With the line tight to the weight at the end, a small movement of an inch or two at the hand can equal a foot or two at the rod tip. Conversely, a six inch pull of the line is six inches at the end of the line.

When fly fishing, it can be a little more complex again. The proportionality between a jerk on one end equating to a jerk on the other also depends on how direct the contact is with the fly, which is influenced by fly weight (including multiple flies), the hydrodynamic drag on the fly, the current’s drag on the tippet and how much slack the angler’s got out there. In a fast current, a small movement can equate to a really large lift, particularly as the fly gets pulled up from the slower water in the strike zone.

Regardless, I’m looking forward to seeing the GoPro footage underwater. I’ve done a lot of playing with different retrieves in stillwater over the last 12 months or so, and it’s fascinating to see how flies respond to different inputs when they’re up close and you can see them in the water (still a distorted view).