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Angling Publications - Index

Angling Publications - may2008 - Index

I really began thinking about the nymphlike-dry
approach after my father, Gary, and
I hosted a fly-fishing school together some
years ago. I hadn’t heard his nymphing talk
in a long time, and as I sat at the back of the
room he delved into a way in which leaders,
indicators, and other visual and tactile clues
could directly link the skills of dry-fly fishing
to the skills of nymphing. It wasn’t covering
new ground from a techniques perspective,
but the concept as a whole really provided
an integrated mind set. People seemed to like
it, and so did I! I hadn’t thought about it in
such a methodical way before, and after that
class, we began discussing more and more of
the mind set and how to present it. In the
years since, we have both taken the core idea
and formed it into a basis for our respective
discussions of foundation nymphing.
The Set-Up
Here’s how we’ll proceed: We’ll start with
the “level;” that is, the position of the fly in
the water column. We’ll begin on the surface,
then work our way down through the film to
the midwaters, and ultimately to the bottom.
Along the way, we’ll discuss “behavior;” that
is, how the fly should act once it reaches the
desired level. We’ll talk about those ideas
while using both unweighted and weighted
leaders while fishing flowing waters (nymphing
in stillwaters is an article in itself).
Making It Work
Since the whole idea here is to relate the
fishing of nymphs to the fishing of dry flies,
let’s just start off with a dry. And to get us
from top to bottom, let’s use midges as an
“example insect.” One of the best-known
adult midge imitations is the Griffith’s gnat,
a disarmingly simply fly that can work wonders
in tough situations. Let’s lash one onto
a hank of 6X and hit a well-known spring
creek where the rainbows rise all day. To make
things easier, we’ll fish a smooth flat, where
there is little, if any, surface chop, and we’ll
choose a classic up-and-across presentation
with an aerial “Puddle” or “Pile” mend to
help reduce drag.
We begin by fishing our gnat high and
dry, where we can easily follow its drift. At
this point, a Q & A session takes over to get
us in the right mind set about this whole
nymph-like-dry trip. So, to begin: How do
we know that our dry fly is at the right level
(i.e. the surface)? We see it. If we don’t see it,
then we know it’s not at the right level. How
do we know if our dry fly is behaving correctly
(in this case dead-drifting)? We see it either
drift cleanly, or with drag. How do we adjust
the drift if drag is present (or we think it will
be present)? We mend, either in the air (that
would be the aerial Puddle/Pile Mend), or on
the water (after the fly has begun its drift).
And . . . how do we know if a fish has taken
our dry fly? Lips stick out and eat it. Pretty
straightforward, isn’t it? Okay, time to start
heading toward the bottom, then.
Let’s go to the pupal (or nymphal) stage
of the insect, fished a few inches (at most)
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