Double Up: 3 Dry-Fly Tandem Rigs to Help You Catch More Trout

Fishing two dries at once can help you quickly home in on what the trout are eating, increasing your chances of a banner day. All photos: Kubie Brown

Two is better than one. Whether you’re talking about scoops of ice cream, glasses of wine, or adopting puppies, doubling up always seems to make things better, especially when you’re fly fishing. Using two flies is a standard practice for many anglers. From dropping a nymph beneath a large dry fly to dead-drifting a pair of streamers under an indicator, almost every angler on the water knows how to double up when fishing subsurface presentations for trout, yet fewer realize just how effective fishing two dry flies can be.

Doubling up on dry flies is a great way to catch more trout. However, just tying on two random dry flies and hoping for the best isn’t the most effective strategy. In fact, fishing with the wrong combination of patterns can actually turn trout off or even spook them away from feeding. Casting and fishing two dries can present a few problems, but it’s a strategy that’s worth the extra hassle—because when you use the right combination of patterns in the right situation and under the right conditions, you’ll see your catch rate soar.

The double hopper rig allows you to mix colors, sizes, and patterns.

Hopper . . . Hopper?

Most anglers are familiar with the classic-hopper dropper combo, which entails dropping a nymph off the back of a large grasshopper or stonefly pattern. However, there are times when pairing a large foam fly pattern with a second, smaller hopper imitation can be incredibly effective.

Fishing a double hopper is most effective in early or late summer, when large insects like stoneflies and grasshoppers are most prevalent. This is especially true during any time these large insect hatches overlap, such as when salmonflies and golden stones are emerging at the same time, or when multiple cycles of grasshoppers are active at once. During these times, different trout will key in on different sizes and types of large insects. By fishing two dry flies, you can draw interest from these fish on multiple fronts simultaneously, preventing you from having to continuously change the size and style of your fly patterns.

When you’re fishing two hoppers at once, you want to choose and set up your pairing carefully. Start with a larger, more gaudy pattern, such as a Chubby Chernobyl or Morrish Hopper, attached directly to your leader. Next tie a 2-to 3-foot length of lighter tippet to the bend of the hook, and then add a smaller, more subtle fly pattern, such as a Water Walker, Dave’s Hopper, or Hopper Grande. Ideally, this second fly should be at least two sizes smaller than your lead fly and should be an entirely different color.

It’s relatively rare, but if you manage to hook and land two trout at the same time, you’ll feel like you won the lottery.

Double hopper set-ups are most effective when they’re fished either right along the bank during the early season or in long, slow moving pools in the center of the river during the late season. Hopper combos can also be effective in faster, more turbulent water, where the larger lead fly will float higher in the water column and draw the trout’s attention while the smaller fly will get tossed around or even sucked beneath the surface like a dying or drowned insect, presenting your flies to the fish on two different fronts.

Whenever you’re fishing with two hoppers at once, mending and line control is vital. Because the lead fly is larger and has a greater surface area, it will be pushed downriver faster than the smaller fly and can end up dragging the dropper downstream like a water skier. To prevent this , stay ahead of your mends by making them before you need to, and mend repeatedly to keep your drifts as slow and natural as possible.

A bushy dun pattern, such as an Adams (left), is a great choice for a dun-spinner rig.

Duns and Spinners

Using two dry flies is also an incredibly effective way to fish during a heavy mayfly hatch. Multiple species or stages of mayflies may be on the water at the same time, yet individual trout can become selective and focus on specific insects. On occasion, you may find that there are duns hatching and spinners returning to the water at the same time, which is when fishing both a dun and a spinner pattern at the same time can be quite effective.

When you fish a dun and spinner together, be particular about the patterns that you use and how you combine them. While parachute dun patterns can work, more traditional patterns with wrapped body hackles—such as a Classic Adams or a Red Quill—float higher in the water, which means that they stand out better to the angler and are easier to drift when paired with a second fly.

To present your dun-spinner combination, attach the dun directly to your leader and then tie 18 to 24 inches of lighter tippet to the bend of the hook. Tie a slightly smaller, sparsely tied spinner pattern, such as a Biot Spinner or Rusty Spinner, to the length of tippet and you’re ready to fish.

Cast your dun-spinner combo upstream of feeding trout and then mend to both slow down your drift and to ensure your flies are properly separated as they float. Interested trout will be able to pick out whichever fly style they prefer, allowing you to capitalize on two stages of the hatch at once.

Mixing and matching cripple and emerger patterns allows you to present what looks like an easy meal to trout.

Cripples and Emergers

In low, clear water or on technical water such as a slough or spring creek, trout can become incredibly selective. Even when you match the hatch perfectly, trout will turn up their noses at more traditional fly combos. However, these conditions can be ideal for pairing cripple and emerger patterns.

Both cripples and emerger patterns are hard for trout to resist. They represent easy pickings that trout will eat even when they’re completely focused on other insect stages and being extremely selective. For the uninitiated, cripple patterns represent a specific stage in a mayfly or caddisfly’s life cycle where the insects fail to properly to emerge from their shuck. They may be actually stuck in the shuck or may have damaged their wings in the process of escaping. They can’t fly away, which makes them especially vulnerable to trout. An emerger pattern imitates the stage between nymph and dun,  nymphs swim or float to the surface and transition to their subadult form, leaving them exposed and easy for hungry fish.

Slow stretches of river are perfect for the cripple-emerger combination.

Combining a cripple and emerger should be done on a long, 10- to 12-foot leader and light tippet. To set it up, tie a cripple pattern that matches the hatching species to your line first, and then add a 2- to 3-foot length of tippet to the bend of the hook. Then tie on a smaller emerger pattern of the same species, or even a generic emerger pattern, like a Spotlight Caddis or Challenged Mayfly. Drift the combination through the slowest moving water you can find, ideally near the heads of pools and at the base of faster currents where insects first emerge. It’s a fantastic combination that can catch trout in low, clear water no matter what insect stage the trout are keyed in on.

Twice The Fun

Many anglers find fishing two dry flies at once intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. While the extra fly can make your presentation more likely to tangle and more difficult to make pin-point accurate casts, when you learn to cast and drift with two dry flies and fish them in the right situation, you can increase your chances of catching trout in difficult situations. It’s a fantastic way to problem-solve and to zero-in on how and what the trout are feeding on quickly, helping you to increase your hookups and double your fun on the water.