I don’t know another time when I approached a slot with so much confidence. Better. Slower. This was it. At the end of the fishless drift, my certainly wasn’t questioned, it was simply re-informed. “Need more weight,” I said. It was an unforgettable, prove-it kind of moment . . .
The Troutbitten Spring Sale ’24 is here, with all leaders, hats and stickers back in the Troutbitten Shop. With this round, we have a few special items to offer, from the Troutbitten and New Trail Brewing company collaboration. There’s a Fish Hard / Drink Beer hat, sticker and t-shirt. The Troutbitten Shop is fully stocked. Hats, leaders, stickers, shirts, hoodies and more are ready to go.
We spend so much time refining presentations and trying to achieve perfectly natural dead drifts that moving the nymph a bit, animating the fly, is liberating. It’s fun.
One rod length over and two rod lengths up. That’s the Golden Ratio. That’s the baseline, and it’s where trust in our drift begins. There are surely moments and situations that call for something different. But a good tight line style starts here, within the Golden Ratio of nymphing . . .
This episode is about tension and slack. It’s about how we manage fly lines and leaders on the water while nymphing. My friend, Austin Dando, joins me to walk through the tight line advantage of keeping line off the water and what happens when we give that up. Fishing greater distances often requires laying line on the water, and how we manage that line, how we plan for it, makes all the difference between a great drift and a poor one . . .
Once you leave the water’s surface, weight is necessary for the presentation. Here’s what weights to choose, for nymphing, why and when. You can’t avoid it. Weight is the fundamental factor. Meaning, it’s probably more important than the fly itself. More weight or less is more consequential than what dubbing, feather or ribbing is wound around the hook shank.
We use all types of weight, and there are good reasons for all of these: tungsten beads, split shot and drop shot . . .
I use euro nymphing often, but won’t be limited to it. And I don’t like the term because of the limitations associated with it.
That said, I don’t think we can change it. Just like the rest of language, we are stuck within a framework for communicating that precedes us. We can only do our best to define and work through this system accurately . . .
This episode features what might be the most important concept of nymph fishing. There are three different ways to present a dead drifted nymph to the trout — three ways to imitate what trout commonly see from the naturals.
In the third part of this critical nymphing concepts series, we consider the advantages and disadvantages of fishing with a suspender.
Do we want more influence or less over the flies? Who or what is in charge of the nymphs? Is it you or the river? What looks more natural? Which choice — which method — fools more trout?
Is the fly low enough for long enough? Is everything in one lane? And do I have to be this far away? These are the key questions. This Season Ten skills series is about the critical concepts of nymphing. Importantly, these concepts apply to all nymphing styles, tight line, indicator or otherwise.